House of the Brave: Practice Makes Perfect
by islandgirl394
Summary: Lucy is strong, confident, and determined to be a reporter. The Hogwarts Herald won't ever know what hit it. Journey through Lucy's seven year career at Hogwarts as she learns and grows as a writer and a young woman. Part of the House of the Brave series.
1. September Year 1

**Thank you for choosing this story!**

**To learn about the House of the Brave project, please visit my profile page.**

**Hope you enjoy and please review :)**

**Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and places from the Harry Potter world, which is trademarked by JK Rowling. However, all plots are my own and are in no way endorsed by JK Rowling or anyone affiliated with the Harry Potter universe.**

* * *

_Year 1: Right to Write _

Chapter 1: September 2016

Excitement. Fear. Elation. Terror. Anticipation. All these emotions and more were running through Lucy as she and her family made their way on September first to platform nine and three quarters. It would be her first time leaving home. Up until now, she'd never spent more than a night away from her house. Her mother had always tucked her into bed at night. Now she was going to have to fend for herself.

People said it would be easier for her, because her older sister was already attending Hogwarts. Students with older siblings don't tend to feel as homesick as eldest children and only children who show up to Hogwarts without any family to support them. Lucy wasn't so sure. Molly didn't have a nurturing bone in her body. In fact, it would probably be easier for Lucy if Molly didn't go to Hogwarts.

On the other hand, Lucy did have her cousins. Though Victoire and Dominique were significantly older than she, Lucy knew she could go to them if she had any problems. And of course, the fact that she would be entering first year with James was a huge reassurance. She could sit with him on the train, and in the Great Hall, and in classes. It would be nice to know at least one other person in her year.

When they arrived at the platform, Molly immediately said her goodbyes and hurried onto the train without so much as a second glance at her family. Lucy would have been put out, except that Molly wasn't saying goodbye to Lucy, just their parents. Lucy could talk to Molly at school any time she wanted. Not that she expected that to happen often.

Lucy's goodbye with her parents was significantly more emotional. While Molly and Percy had always had a very detached relationship, Lucy was her father's little girl. She was pretty sure she even saw tears in his eyes when she hugged him – a rare sight. As for Lucy's goodbye with Audrey, it was emotional and tear-filled and made Lucy consider not going. But of course, that wasn't a real consideration. Lucy knew she had to go to Hogwarts, and besides that she did want to. She'd heard great things about going to school. It was just new, and therefore it was a little scary.

After they'd said their goodbyes, Lucy declared that she was going to find James and get on the train. Her parents offered to come with her, but Lucy declined. She was eleven years old now and didn't need her parents chaperoning her all the time. As soon as the train left the station, Lucy would be on her own, so there was no reason not to start now.

Though they were reluctant, Lucy's parents agreed and let Lucy go, promising that they wouldn't leave until the train had departed.

On a whim, Lucy decided to head towards the top of the platform, searching the crowds for James as she walked. She finally spotted him trying to detach himself from his younger sister, and Lucy had to hide her laugh behind her hand as she headed over and then hung back to give James the chance to say his goodbyes before she butted in. She watched her Aunt Ginny pull Lily off of James, and then James and his father shared an awkward man-hug. When James turned and started heading towards the train, Lucy started walking again and cut him off.

"Hey cousin," Lucy greeted him.

"Luce, good to see you," James returned with a smile.

"I thought we could sit together," Lucy said, gesturing to the train. "Since we don't really know anyone else yet."

James nodded. "Good idea."

They climbed onto the train and James waved a final goodbye to his family before the two started to walk the length of the train in search of an empty compartment.

"So, are you excited? Nervous?" Lucy asked now that it was just the two of them.

"Excited? Yes. Nervous? Not a chance," James replied.

Lucy rolled her eyes. James exuded confidence, but she knew deep down he was nervous just like her and the rest of the first years. He'd never admit it, but Lucy knew him better than most.

"Well I'm nervous," Lucy declared, just so that he would know he wasn't the only one.

"There's no need," James assured her. "Now that we finally get to go to Hogwarts, we're going to have the best time of our lives."

LlLlLlLlLlL

When they arrived at Hogwarts, the first years were escorted to the castle and then herded into a small room off the Entrance Hall to await their sorting. It was rather nerve-wracking, not knowing how long they would be in the small room, and Lucy felt herself starting to panic.

It was irrational panic of course. For one thing, it wasn't as though she could control what house she got sorted into, and for another, whatever the decision the sorting hat made, it would be a reflection of who Lucy was deep down, not a measure of her skill in any capacity. But Lucy still felt the pressure to be sorted into Gryffindor like the rest of her family, and just like most of the other eleven-year-olds in the room, the worry that she might not be didn't really sink in until the moment had arrived.

"Hey, where are my future Ravenclaws at?" one boy called out from the other side of the room. He put his hand up in the air and waved it around confidently, but he didn't get a very strong response.

Lucy saw a few people glance over at the boy with glimmers of hope in their eyes, as if they wanted to get sorted into Ravenclaw but weren't convinced yet that it would happen. Of course, nobody was going to commit to a house right now, moments before the sorting happened. If they were to claim one and then get sorted into another, they would look stupid.

The boy seemed to realize this and he quietly put his hand back down and sunk into the shadows. Not long after, it was time for the sorting to begin, and Hagrid led them to the doors of the Great Hall.

Most of the sorting seemed to go by in a blur for Lucy. It seemed like a lot of people were going to Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw at first, but Lucy wasn't paying close enough attention to tell. The room was a little fuzzy around the edges of her vision and she was having a hard enough time just breathing and standing upright to worry about anything else.

When James' turn came, Lucy forced herself to pay attention and watched as her cousin sauntered up to the stool and sat down with a determined look on his face. It was not a long wait before the sorting hat declared him a Gryffindor and he gleefully made his way to the house table.

Being a Weasley meant that Lucy had to wait until almost the end of the sorting for her name to get called. It was a curse most of her cousins shared with her, and Lucy found herself hating James for having taken his father's last name instead of his mother's.

When her turn finally did come, Lucy took a deep breath and walked up to the stool at the front. Thankfully, she didn't have to do anything besides sit, which she was able to manage without much difficulty, and then the sorting hat was lowered onto her head and all she could do was wait.

"Oh, you're a nervous one I see," the hat said into her ear. "You shouldn't be. I'm only here to tell you who you really are." Strangely, Lucy was not at all calmed by the hat's words. "My decision won't change anything about who you are, only give you some insight as to that fact."

_Just get on with it_, Lucy thought angrily at the hat. Why was it wasting her time?

"Well alright," the hat muttered grumpily. "If you don't want to listen to my reasoning, then I'll just proclaim your house and be done with it. Your future is in… GRYFFINDOR!"

The first thing Lucy saw when the hat was lifted from her head was James standing and clapping for her. With a newfound bounce to her step, Lucy bounded down to the Gryffindor table and joined her cousin on the bench, happy to have the stressful part of the evening out of the way. Lucy was so happy she had been sorted into Gryffindor. Not only was it the house all her family was in, but Lucy really and truly felt like a Gryffindor.

LlLlLlLlLlL

The first week of classes mostly consisted of Lucy getting her bearings. Somehow, James had managed to jump right in and get his first detention right out of the gate, but Lucy was keeping a much lower profile.

The girls in Lucy's dorm were nice. Two of the girls, Faith Lewis and Andrea Landon, had bonded with each other instantly from the start. While they still interacted with the other three girls, they tended to band together a lot and Lucy didn't get to know them all to well.

There was also Tina Sweeting. The girl's last name was entirely appropriate, because Lucy didn't think she'd ever met a sweeter person in her entire life. Tina was nice to everyone, was always smiling, and had a soft, innocent look about her that made you feel at ease around her. She also loved to sing, which of course after she'd revealed it was forced to perform for the girls in the dormitory. Her voice was soft and melodic and absolutely beautiful despite the lack of professional training.

The fourth of the girls in Lucy's dorm was named Ashley Kirke. Ashley was much more spunky than Tina, and much more dramatic. When she was in a room, she dominated it. You couldn't be in a room with Ashley and not know she was there. She had a big personality, and sometimes Lucy found it a little exhausting, but the girl was extremely nice and Lucy definitely considered her a budding friend.

Since Faith and Andrea tended to do their own thing, Lucy, Tina, and Ashley quickly became their own little threesome. Lucy still spend some of her time with James of course, but he had his own friends, and besides, it was nice to have friends who were girls.

LlLlLlLlLlL

One day, about halfway through September, one of the prefects posted a list of clubs and activities that were offered at Hogwarts on the noticeboard. Out of curiosity, Lucy, Ashely, and Tina approached to see if there was anything interesting they could join.

"Oh my gosh, yes!" Ashley exclaimed excitedly. "I'm so signing up for drama club!"

"That would be so perfect for you," Tina noted. Lucy had to agree. Ashley was so outgoing and exuberant and dramatic. She was a born actress and would shine in the spotlight.

"You should join choir," Ashley suggested to Tina after writing her name on the parchment under 'drama club'. "Your voice is amazing, they could definitely use you."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Tina said, immediately becoming shy. "I mean, I like so sing, but there would be so many people watching and listening."

"You performed for us in the dorm the other day," Ashley pointed out. "What's the difference?"

"That was just for the four of you," Tina insisted. "It would be different if it was the whole school. I couldn't do it."

"Sure you can," Lucy encouraged the girl. "Go on. If it's horrible, you can always quit. You should give it a try though. You might really enjoy it."

"I do like to sing," Tina agreed, visibly becoming more enthusiastic about the idea. "Alright, I'll sign up. What could it hurt?"

"Great!" Ashley grinned, handing Tina her quill so that she could write her name down under 'choir'.

"Alright Lucy, what about you?" Tina asked when she had finished writing.

"What about me?" Lucy frowned.

"What are you going to sign up for? Me and Ashley already picked our activities," Tina explained.

"Oh," Lucy said in surprise. She hadn't realized that they would be expecting her to sign up for something too. She quickly glanced over the list of clubs and teams. "I don't know. I don't really have a talent like you and Ashley do," she said. "I don't sing or dance, and I don't have a special proficiency for any particular subject yet. Maybe I'll wait and join something next year."

"No way," Ashley shook her head. "If we're both doing activities, then you need to do one too. You can't just sit around the common room studying all day."

Lucy realized that Ashley had a point. Her older sister Molly had never signed up for any activities, instead choosing to study constantly to the point that she was quite possibly going to drive herself insane any day now. Her socialization was minimal, even with the three girls she deemed 'friends'. Lucy didn't want that to become her too.

"Okay, but what do I sign up for?" Lucy frowned at the list with renewed interest. "I still don't have any special talents."

"What do you enjoy doing?" Tina prompted. "What sort of thing did you used to do before you came to Hogwarts?"

Lucy thought about it. "I played with my cousins. My parents taught me things when they had time. Reading, writing, basic maths, that sort of thing."

"What about when you were on your own?" Tina asked. "Like, if your mom was cooking dinner and your dad was still at work and none of your cousins were around?"

Lucy thought hard. "Sometimes I would see what kinds of magical things I could make happen… Sometimes I would write stories... Sometimes I would play in my room…"

"Go back," Ashley said suddenly. "You like to write stories?"

Lucy shrugged and nodded. "Yeah, I guess so," she confirmed.

"Alright, so what about joining the newspaper?" Ashley suggested, pointing it out on the list. "That involves writing."

Lucy shrugged again. "I don't know…" she muttered. "Newspaper would be kind of different that the sort of stuff I used to write about. Most of that was fictional and involved princesses in far-off lands."

"You can always quit if you don't like it," Ashley said, echoing Lucy's words to Tina from earlier. "But isn't it worth a shot?"

Lucy considered for a moment and then decided to give it a try. "Why not?" she declared, grabbing the quill from Tina and adding her name to the sign-up sheet. "Maybe I'll surprise myself."

LlLlLlLlLlL

The first meeting of the newspaper club was that Friday, immediately following class. As soon as Professor Derlid released them from Defence class, Lucy headed to the newspaper club room on the first floor, her stomach a bundle of nerves. Ashley and Tina had already had their first club meetings the previous day, and both had returned extremely excited and glad to have signed up. Lucy could only hope that newspaper was the right fit for her, and that she didn't feel completely out of place.

When Lucy walked into the room, she was immediately greeted by a seventh year Slytherin who introduced herself as Kate Weston, editor in chief of the _Hogwarts Herald_.

"We are so excited to have you joining us," Kate practically gushed. "We lost a few strong writers at the end of last year, and of course, this will be the last year for a couple of us, so I'm really excited to get the chance to nurture a new writer."

"Thanks?" Lucy said, a little unsure. She wasn't prepared for how intense it was going to be right from the start. She also wasn't prepared for what she quickly found out next – that she was the only new member of the group.

"Well now that Lucy is here, let's get started, shall we?" Kate declared, calling the room to order.

Lucy hurried to take a seat, and took a minute to glance around the room. The room was set up much like a classroom, with one desk at the front, facing towards the room, and then a series of desks in rows facing front. The desks were significantly larger than those in the classrooms though, and the majority of them were littered with all sorts of random bits of parchment, giving the room a feeling of chaos despite the fact that it was only the beginning of the year.

They started by going around the room and introducing themselves, for Lucy's sake. Everyone else knew each other, and since she was the only new person there, everybody could assume who Lucy was. Lucy tried to pay attention to all the names, but there were too many of them, and it went by so fast that all she was able to retain was that Kate was in charge, and that there were a great deal of fifth years in the group compared to the other years.

Two of the older students named themselves as Kate's senior editors. In addition to writing articles of their own, they assisted Kate in the production of the final product of the newspaper. Most everyone else was a writer, all with their specific fields that they were responsible for. One of the fifth years, the Ravenclaw, was the group's photographer and was in charge of taking all the pictures for the newspaper. He also worked closely with the school's photography club and was the only member of the club apart from Kate who was allowed to use the club camera or even be in the developing room, which Lucy learned was located right next to the news room, alone without supervision.

The two youngest members of the group besides Lucy – a couple of second years, both Ravenclaws – were the club's fact-checkers. Kate explained that all first and second year students started out as fact-checkers in order to learn about newspaper and article writing so that come third year, they would be ready to start writing articles of their own.

Lucy was a little put out that she was going to be starting off as a fact-checker and not writing her own pieces, but she was willing to stick it out to see how things went. It seemed like a nice group of people, and they were extremely welcoming. Maybe Lucy really could fit in here.

LlLlLlLlLlL

That evening at dinner, Lucy met up with Tina and Ashley for dinner to discuss her first experience with the newspaper club.

"So, how was it?" Ashley asked almost as soon as they sat down at the table. "Did you love it?"

"It was good," Lucy replied, filling her plate with food from the middle of the table. "It wasn't exactly what I imagined, but I think it could be fun."

"Not exactly the enthusiasm I was going for, but alright," Ashley said. "As long as you're having fun."

Lucy nodded. "It seemed cool," she said. "And since I start out as just a fact-checker, if I decide to quit, I won't really be putting them out. It won't be like I had my own column or anything."

"Wait, you're starting out as a fact-checker?" Ashley frowned. "That's it?"

"Everyone starts out that way," Lucy explained. "It's fine, I don't mind. It'll give me a chance to see how things work, get used to the pace and everything else."

"I guess," Ashley agreed. "But they'd better promote you quick. You're worth way more than being a simple fact-checker."

"How would you know?" Lucy asked. "You've never read anything I've ever written."

"I can tell," Ashley said, matter-of-factly. "And I can tell you one thing for certain. You're going to be editor in chief of the _Hogwarts Herald_ one day."

Lucy laughed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah right," she said. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves here."

As the evening wore on, Lucy enjoyed her time with her friends, talking to them about newspaper, and letting them talk about drama and choir. They talked about school, and their various classes, gossiped about some of their classmates, and even some of the teachers.

By the time Lucy went to bed, she was feeling pretty good about her start to school. She had made some good friends, she was participating in school, even her grades were pretty good, which she was willing to be proud of even though it was only the first month of school and they weren't doing anything difficult yet.

All in all, Lucy was happy, and she went to sleep happy and content that night.


	2. October Year 1

_Year 1: Right to Write _

Chapter 2: October 2016

"I hate April Sanders!" Ashley exclaimed one day in the common room.

"What's wrong with April Sanders?" Tina asked.

"Who _is_ April Sanders?" Lucy replaced Tina's question with the one she thought was more important.

"April Sanders is the president of the drama club," Ashley replied. "And she's literally the worst."

"What did she do?" Tina asked.

"So the play that we're going to be putting on at the end of the year was finally announced today. The senior council came to an agreement and decided on _The Fountain of Fair Fortune_," Ashley began to explain.

"Oh, my mother used to read that story to me all the time when I was little," Tina said with a nostalgic smile.

"It is a good tale," Lucy nodded.

"Well yeah, obviously," Ashley agreed. "I was super excited too. And I immediately said I wanted to put my name on the audition list for Amata, because she's my favorite character from the story."

"Well she is the one who ends up with Sir Luckless," Tina said. "Of the three witches, she'd be the romantic female lead."

"I always liked Altheda better," Lucy declared. "She's so independent, I always liked that about her."

"Well anyway, I wanted to audition for Amata," Ashley said, reeling the conversation back in. "But then April tells us that first years don't get to audition. Apparently first through third years are just extras and members of the crew."

"What? That's so unfair!"

Tina was outraged, but Lucy simply nodded her head in understanding. The newspaper club had been a similar disappointment. Lucy had hoped that when she joined, she would be writing articles and maybe that she'd even get a column, but instead she'd been relegated to fact-checker. It seemed that the whole start from the bottom and work your way up thing ran through most if not all of the clubs at Hogwarts.

"I know, right?" Ashley cried. "I would make such a good Altheda!"

"To be fair, they're probably looking for someone a bit older to play the romantic female lead," Lucy pointed out. "Being eleven, you wouldn't be able to bring that much of your own personal experiences to he role."

"That shouldn't mean I don't get the chance to even audition," Ashley insisted. "And I won't ever be allowed to audition until fourth year, and even then, it'll only be for the minor roles, like the worm."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree that it's unfair," Lucy rushed to say. "I just understand where some of that comes from. It would look weird to have an eleven year old Amata playing opposite a seventeen year old Sir Luckless."

"I guess you have a point," Ashley agreed. "But what about Asha? I could totally play Asha. Since I'm so much younger and smaller than the people who would probably be playing the other leads, I could pull off looking weak and frail so much better than someone in seventh year."

"But you don't even want to play Asha," Tina pointed out.

"So not the point," Ashley shook her head. "The point is even if I wanted to, I couldn't."

"Are you going to do anything about it?" Lucy wondered.

Ashley sighed. "There's nothing really to do. The rules are the rules, and if I want to be in drama club, then it looks like I'm going to be an extra. Or a crew member, but I'd really rather be an extra. At least I'd still be on stage."

"What kind of role could you even get as an extra in _The Fountain of Fair Fortune_?" Lucy frowned.

Ashley made a face. "Someone in the crowd right at the beginning I guess," she muttered. "You know, one of the people trying to get into the garden, but doesn't get chosen."

"So you'd only be on stage for like, two minutes," Lucy said.

Ashley nodded. "And you know what gets me even more?" she asked.

"Hmm?" Tina hummed in question.

"They almost never repeat a performance in a student's seven years, which means this will be the only time we ever put on _The Fountain of Fair Fortune_ while I'm at Hogwarts. So I'll never get to play Amata," Ashley said bitterly.

"No," Lucy said slowly, "but they'll put on other plays that you'll get to be a part of."

"But what if they're no good?" Ashley pouted. "Or what if it's something like _The Tale of the Three Brothers_? There are no good female leads in that story. The best I could hope for would be the second brother's dead wife."

"Or you could be Death," Lucy suggested. "Death could be a guy or a girl."

"I don't want to be Death," Ashley said. "Death is just a hooded figure. Nobody would ever even see my face."

"I think you're getting ahead of yourself," Tina interjected. "Focus on _The Fountain of Fair Fortune_ for now. Worry about the other plays when they come."

"You're right," Ashley agreed. "I'll just have to prove to them how good I am, and then they'll have to give me a better part."

"Well that's the spirit," Tina said.

LlLlLlLlLlL

The next day, Lucy had a newspaper meeting after classes and headed down to the first floor as soon as Professor Flitwick had dismissed them from charms class. At the beginning of any newspaper club meeting, the first order of business was always for Kate to praise the articles she had liked, and to reject the articles she didn't. Lucy was excited, because she'd put some real strong effort into some of the articles she'd fact-checked and was looking forward to hearing Kate praise her for it.

"First off, I'd like to thank Cody for his phenomenal photographs in our last issue," Kate opened the meeting. "Cody, I know you sacrificed an O on your Runes assignment to get them developed in time, and I appreciate your dedication to the team."

Lucy nodded. Cody Mitchell was the group's photographer and his photographs had been particularly good this time around, though Lucy wasn't sure sacrificing school for an extra-curricular activity was necessarily the way to go.

"Also, Cindy, fantastic job with the feature on Professor Flitwick. Let's try to get you more interviews, because clearly that's your specialty," Kate continued.

Lucy had to say that she was in agreement there. Cindy Fletwock, of Hufflepuff, had done a great job with the interview, asking interesting and relevant questions that students would want to know the answers to.

"Morgan, as for your article on the new Quidditch line-ups for the year," Kate moved on. Lucy felt herself straighten up in her chair. This was one of the articles she'd worked on, and she was eager to hear nice things. "It was good, but I think you could go a little deeper. For instance, these two new beaters on the Gryffindor team? Doesn't it seem a little suspicious that the two are in the same year and both made the team? Who was the fact-checker on this? Lucy? Didn't you dig anything up when you were investigating?"

Lucy frowned. "You mean about Miles Bailey and Tom Kelley?" she asked. This wasn't at all where she'd thought the meeting would go. "There's nothing suspicious about them."

"Did you even bother to check, or did you just assume that?" Kate demanded. "Assumptions aren't going to cut it here. If there's a story, we need to be the ones to get to the bottom of it."

"No really, there's nothing suspicious," Lucy insisted. "They're friends of my cousin and they trained really hard for this. They trained together a lot, and I think that's why they ended up both making the team – because they already work together well as a pair."

Kate pursed her lips. "And you didn't think Morgan could benefit from that information when you were fact-checking for her?" she demanded.

Lucy felt herself shrink back into her chair. It hadn't really occurred to her to mention it at the time. The article had seemed solid, and everything Morgan had written had been factual. Lucy didn't understand what Kate wanted from her.

"Moving on," Kate sighed. "Morgan, feel free to take another pass at the Quidditch article. We'll run it in next week's issue. Now Jasper, about your article on the incoming class of first years, I'm not convinced you even attempted to get to know any of them. Sure, you got their names and houses right, but right now it reads more like an attendance list than an article. Did you even interview any of them at all?"

"Why would I want to interview a bunch of eleven-year-olds?" Jasper Davis, from Slytherin, asked. "They're not interesting. Why can't I get assigned a more interesting piece, like that one about the new library rooms?"

"We already did a piece on the new library study spaces," Kate pointed out. "And Dominic did an excellent job with it."

Dominic Wadcock, of Hufflepuff, smiled at this.

"Yes, but my take on it would have been completely different from Dominic's," Jasper claimed.

"And I'll say it again," Kate said, clearly annoyed. "An article about how Hogwarts is a conspiracy to slowly turn us all into mindless zombies who do nothing but eat, sleep, and study, and how the new library study rooms are the first step towards that would be an op-ed piece, not a hard-hitting article. We have the opinion submission box for a reason, and if you would like to submit your article to that, you are more than welcome."

Since the newspaper club was so small, there was a longstanding policy where any student with an opinion on something at Hogwarts that they wanted published could submit their article through the opinion submission box. Every issue, Kate would choose one or two of them to publish, keeping the rest of the club members free to work on the other articles.

Grumbling to himself, Jasper crossed his arms and slouched in his chair.

"Would anyone else like to give the first-year article a try?" Kate asked in an almost pleading voice.

Lucy glanced around the room, and when nobody immediately volunteered, she timidly raised her hand.

Kate sighed. "Lucy, we've been over this. First and second years are fact-checkers and grunts only. You can write your first article once you get to third year like Brady and Trent."

"I know," Lucy nodded, not wanting to start arguing the whole structure of the club. "But I just think that an article on the new class of first years could benefit from being written by someone closer to the age group. Like, possibly someone who is a first year herself?"

Lucy knew it was a long shot, but she had to try.

Kate considered for a moment, and Lucy held her breath in anticipation.

"You have a point," Kate nodded. Lucy felt her spirits soar. "Not about you writing it, obviously." And with that, her spirits sank once again. "It simply wouldn't be appropriate to have someone write about their own experience. It would be an opinion piece. It has to be written by someone outside the group. But your idea about the person being closer in age is a good one. Allison?"

Second year Ravenclaw Allison Clearwater immediately jumped to attention, sitting up straighter in her chair.

"I'm giving you the assignment," Kate declared.

"But I'm only a second year," Allison reminded their editor-in-chief, confused.

"Yes," Kate nodded. "And normally I would never do this. But you're the closest in age to the first years, and you were just one yourself, so you're the best option if we want someone who can connect at all with the subject."

"I won't let you down," Allison said in excitement, clearly over the moon with the opportunity to have her very own assignment.

"I'm giving you a week," Kate declared. "And I'll give you a copy of Jasper's original, so that you at least have the names to work with. Brady, you'll fact-check for her," she named the other second-year in the club.

With a sigh, Lucy sunk back into her chair and let the rest of the meeting happen. She didn't interject or make any more suggestions. She was too discouraged. After being beaten down twice in a row, Lucy wasn't sure about newspaper club anymore. Maybe it was time to quit.

LlLlLlLlLlL

"How was newspaper?" Ashley asked later that evening.

"I don't want to talk about it," Lucy muttered. "Different topic. Tina, how was choir?"

Tina shrugged. "Alright, I guess."

"Just alright?" Ashley frowned. "I thought you were loving it."

"Yeah, well I mean, I love to sing, so that's great. It's just… well apparently there are too many sopranos and not enough altos, so they're making me sing with the alto section now," Tina revealed.

"What?" Lucy cried. "Can they even do that? If you're not an alto, won't that just strain your voice and not sound good?"

"Well apparently, since I'm a first year, I don't really get a say," Tina shrugged. "They said that next year I can be in the section I want, but that as a first year I have to round out the sections."

"Kind of like how I'm not allowed to play a lead in drama," Ashley said, shaking her head.

"Or how I'm not allowed to write articles," Lucy added. "Or even have ideas, apparently."

"Okay, something clearly happened at newspaper today, what's up?" Ashley demanded, rounding on Lucy.

"It's not a big deal," Lucy insisted. "Basically just more of first years getting the short end of the stick. Honestly I'm not even sure it's worth being in a club in first year at this point. We're not appreciated, we're not doing what we want to be doing, and we're not happy."

"Yeah, but we have to put in the time now, and then in a couple of years, we'll be at the top," Ashley pointed out.

"But why?" Lucy demanded. "It's not like a person can't join a club in their fourth or fifth year, really any year at all. Why stay a part of the club now when we could join later on and actually get to do something."

"But don't you think that's a bit selfish?" Tina asked. "I mean, sure it's not ideal me being in the alto section this year, but I understand why they needed me to fill in. And when I'm in seventh year and getting solos and things, I'm going to want a fully rounded out alto section backing me up, and that's probably going to include a few first year sopranos. We do our part now because when we're older the new first years will do the same for us."

"Exactly," Ashley nodded. "I might not be a fan of being an extra, but I know when I'm in seventh year and have the lead – fingers crossed guys – there will be first years to fill in all the less desirable rolls so that the play can be spectacular. So I'll happily put in my time now, learn how the group works, work on my acting, and when the day comes, I'll be so much better prepared."

Lucy could see that her friends had a point, but she was still so worked up from her newspaper club meeting.

"But it's like they don't even want me there," Lucy crossed her arms. "I had this great idea, and Kate just gave it to Allison like it was nothing. But it was _my _idea."

"But she did still use your idea?" Ashley asked for clarification.

Lucy nodded.

"Well then clearly you are important to the club," Ashley pointed out. "Just because you didn't get the assignment doesn't mean your ideas aren't valued. And if the article or whatever is better for your suggestion, doesn't that make you feel good?"

Lucy thought about it. "Yeah, actually, it does," she smiled. "Maybe you do have a point. I just have to do my best and be happy knowing I'm a part of something great. And then one day, I'll be editor-in-chief, and I'll be glad to have grunt first years to do things like fact-check articles."

"That's the spirit!" Tina exclaimed.

"Only there's one thing I have to do…" Lucy added.

LlLlLlLlLlL

Lucy found Kate in the newspaper room alone. It was getting close to curfew, but still she was sitting at her desk at the front, reading through article after article, a quill in hand and a pot of red ink by her side.

"Kate?" Lucy called out tentatively, knocking on the door as she came inside. She was exceptionally nervous to be doing this – confronting a seventh year – but she had to do it.

"Lucy? Why are you down here this late? Don't tell me you forgot your articles, I need them proofread by tomorrow if I'm going to have time to edit them and still get them into the next issue," Kate said.

"No, don't worry, I didn't forget them. I've already finished with one and I'll have to do the other tomorrow, because I have to look something up in the library," Lucy assured her. "I actually just came to talk to you for a second."

Kate sighed. "Well make it quick, because I'd really like to finish this before curfew so I don't have to take it back to the dorms. My dormmates are always going through my stuff and it's a good chance it would get misplaced somewhere."

"Sure," Lucy nodded, stepping up to Kate's desk. "Uh… well I'm not exactly sure where to start, but…"

"Just say it, whatever it is," Kate sighed. "Just please tell me you're not thinking about quitting, because I couldn't handle that right now."

Lucy startled at that, because it was exactly what she would have come down here to say if not for her conversation with Ashley and Tina.

"Actually, I was going to do exactly that," Lucy said, causing Kate to drop the quill and finally make actual eye contact. "But then I decided not to."

"Well that's a relief," Kate declared.

"I did just want to talk about the reasons why I was planning on quitting though," Lucy said.

Kate practically rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. "Let me guess," she said. "You thought you'd be writing articles of your own, you hate being a fact-checker, and you think you should be writing front page articles even though you're only eleven and probably have terrible grammar and have never written an article before in your life."

"That's not it," Lucy shook her head. "Well, okay, it was a little bit that, but mostly it was that I don't feel appreciated. Today I felt like you would have preferred me not to be here at all, and while I'm not quitting today, if I don't start to feel like part of the group, I might have to quit soon."

Kate uncrossed her arms and adjusted herself in her chair. "I do see your point. I'm sorry if you felt like I didn't want you there, that's the opposite of what I want. I'm actually really grateful that you've joined us, because you're the only new person we've got and we're down three members since last year. How I was today in the meeting is just how I am with everyone. I'm very hard on people, because I want this newspaper to be the best it can be, and there's so much to do, I don't have time to pussyfoot around anything, so I'm very blunt."

"I can understand that," Lucy said, trying to see the club meeting from Kate's perspective instead of her own.

"And as for the whole fact-checking thing, it's not a punishment," Kate added, wisely realizing that this was still bothering Lucy too. "We've been doing it for years, and it's always been a really good learning tool. As a first year, you don't know how to write a good article, it's just a fact."

Lucy went to object, to say that she could write a good article if given the opportunity, but Kate didn't give her the space to interject.

"That goes for me as well. I couldn't write at all when I was in first year. My professors were constantly pointing out spelling and grammar mistakes, my punctuation was horrible, and cohesion was definitely not my strong suit either. But because I had to spend two years as a fact-checker before I got to write any articles for the newspaper, I got really familiar with how an article should be structured, with how they should flow… It's a really useful way to learn about writing articles while still being useful to the team. You may not realize it, but we aren't throwing you off to the side for two years, we're molding you into the writer you're going to be, we're getting you ready for third year."

"Well when you put it like that…" Lucy mumbled, suddenly feeling very sheepish for all the anger and frustration she'd been feeling before.

"So we'll see you in meeting tomorrow then?" Kate asked.

"Yeah," Lucy nodded as Kate gathered her things. It was too close to curfew to stay in the newspaper room much longer. "You'll see me tomorrow. And thanks."

Lucy left then, and as she made her way up to the seventh floor, she found herself feeling a lot better about everything. Kate did have a point, the writing of a first year probably couldn't hold a candle to the writing of a seventh year, and Lucy had a lot to learn. But now she was determined to prove herself. She was going to become the best writer the newspaper had ever seen, and she was going to do it as a first year.


	3. November Year 1

_Year 1: Right to Write _

Chapter 3: November 2016

With the arrival of November, Lucy began to feel more settled at Hogwarts. Tina and Ashley were great friends, she had her sister and cousins around all the time, she was finally starting to feel like an integral part of the newspaper club, and she was really starting to get a hang of using magic. It was a wonderful feeling, and Lucy understood why everyone always said that going to Hogwarts would be the best years of her life.

"Her Luce," James greeted Lucy one morning in the Great Hall. It was breakfast, Monday morning, and Lucy was feeling energized and ready for the week. "Tina, Ashley," James acknowledged Lucy's friends as he sat down.

"Where's Andrew?" Lucy asked, wondering why the boy wasn't with James. Ever since the beginning of term, the two had been practically inseparable.

"Refused to get out of bed this morning," James replied as he loaded his plate with eggs, bacon, toast, and beans – and pretty much anything else he could get his hands on. "Alarm went off, he didn't get up. I threw a shoe at him, and he growled at me, so I left him there."

"You left him there?" Ashley frowned. "But what if he's late to class?"

"That is not my problem," James replied. "He is more than welcome to be late if he wants to, and I'll happily stand by and watch him get detention."

"He's not going to get detention for being late to charms, you idiot," Lucy rolled her eyes at her cousin. "He'll lose house points, which affects all of us."

James shrugged. "Again, I don't see why this is my responsibility. If he's old enough to be at Hogwarts, he's old enough to get out of bed without mommy waking him up."

Turning away from her cousin, Lucy faced her two friends. "If I ever sleep past the alarm, can I please request that one of you wake me up for class rather than leave me in bed to rot?"

"As long as you do the same for us," Ashley confirmed. Tina nodded to indicate that she agreed.

"There. See?" Lucy said, turning back to James. "My friends care about me. Don't you care about Andrew?"

"Gross," James said, making a face. "Guys don't 'care' about each other. We hang out."

"Whatever," Lucy said, shaking her head in an attempt to forget the conversation. "Come on, we should get to charms."

"But I just started eating!" James protested, mouth full of bacon.

"Well then you should have gotten up earlier like we did," Lucy declared unforgivingly. "But by all means, stay here and eat your breakfast. Maybe if you and Andrew are both late, you'll have more compassion next time he sleeps in and think to wake him up."

James shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth and grabbed his toast. "Alright fine, I'm coming to class," he grumbled. "Merlin, it's like being back home again. I thought I came to Hogwarts to get away from my parents."

"I would be offended that you're comparing me to your mother," Lucy said. "But Aunt Ginny's the best, so I'll take it as a compliment."

"It wasn't meant as one," James mumbled through a mouthful of toast.

"Good grief, quit while you're ahead," Ashley said, stepping between the two cousins to ward off any further arguments.

LlLlLlLlLlL

When they arrived in charms class, Andrew was predictably nowhere to be seen. The four Gryffindors chose seats near the door, saving one for their tardy friend in the hopes that he might be able to slip in relatively unnoticed and avoid being called out.

It was a particularly exciting day in charms, and Lucy was excited. They would be learning their fourth spell that day. After covering levitation, fire-making, and extinguishing, they had now moved on to opening things.

"Alright class, you all know the theory, now it's time to learn the incantation and want motion," Professor Flitwick dived right into the lesson without taking attendance. "And remember, this spell is the building block on which we will later be learning the unlocking spell, so make sure you have all the fundamentals down, or else you'll run into trouble later on."

They were about ten minutes into the lesson when Andrew finally slipped into class and took his seat.

"Thanks for waking me up," he whispered to James.

"Hey, I threw a shoe," James said. "What else did you want from me?"

"Did Flitwick take attendance? Have I lost us points?" Andrew asked worriedly. While losing points wasn't necessarily a big deal for most students, it wasn't uncommon for older students to call out first years for losing points, oftentimes when they themselves had recently lost a great deal of points and didn't want the attention on them.

"No, you're good," James assured him. "She went straight into lecture. You lucked out today."

Lucy shushed the boys then, because she was having difficulty hearing the Professor and wanted to make sure that she didn't miss anything important. Lucy was particularly excited about the opening spell, because there was a half-broken clasp on her trunk that sometimes made the thing difficult to open. The trunk had been her mother's when she'd been in school, and its best days were certainly behind it. Lucy looked forward to being able to open it magically instead of struggling with the thing multiple times a day.

After another ten or fifteen minutes of going over the basics one final time, Professor Flitwick handed around a bunch of small boxes and instructed everyone to give the spell a try by attempting to open their box.

The class immediately burst into excited chatter as friends grouped together to work on the spell in collaboration. Lucy and Tina pulled their chairs around so that they were facing opposite James and Ashley, and Andrew pulled his around so that he was on the end.

"Alright, here goes nothing," Ashley declared, unilaterally making the decision that she would be the first to attempt the spell. "_Aberto_."

When nothing happened, nobody was particularly shocked. It was only the first attempt after all, and as first years, they were still new to magic as well.

Andrew went next, with similar results, and then it was Lucy's turn.

Just as Lucy was about to attempt her spell, Zacharias Smith from Hufflepuff walked up, dragged a chair over to face across from Andrew, and sat down.

"Hi there friends, how's it going?" he asked, somehow managing to sound like a small child and an old man all at the same time.

When nobody made any reply, he just kept talking.

"Thought I'd come and see how you lot were doing with the spell. None of us Hufflepuffs have managed it yet, though it looks like some of the Ravenclaws over there have been successful." He pointed to a group of Ravenclaws not far away with at least four open boxes on their desks.

"Yeah, we're still working on it," Lucy replied politely. "I was just about to have my first attempt actually, so…"

"What about you James?" Zacharias asked, ignoring Lucy and focusing all his attention on James. "Any luck yet?"

"Not yet," James said in a voice that clearly indicated to everyone but Zacharias that he was not enjoying the Hufflepuff's company. "Haven't actually tried yet though."

"Well give it a go," Zacharias said, gesturing to the box in front of James.

Glancing apologetically at Lucy for stealing her turn, James cleared his throat and attempted the spell. When it was unsuccessful, Zacharias only laughed and patted James on the back.

"Ah well, you'll get it," he assured James. "Best of luck, eh pal? But listen, I'd better get back to the Hufflepuffs."

"Yeah, alright, you do that," James nodded, waiting until Zacharias had fully removed himself from earshot before saying anything else.

"That guy is weird," Andrew spoke up before James could even say anything.

"What's his deal, anyway?" Ashley wondered.

"He thinks we're best friends," James groaned, dropping his head into his hands.

"Apparently he's under the impression his father and James' father were best friends too, which they weren't," Lucy clarified for her friends. "And now he thinks that friendship extends to the two of them."

"Which it definitely does not," James said, making sure to clarify the point. "I don't want anything to do with that obnoxious, self-absorbed, - "

"And how are we doing over here?" Professor Flitwick interrupted. "Not making very much progress I see. Have any of you successfully accomplished the spell yet?"

"No Professor, we're working on it," Andrew replied.

"Yes," Professor Flitwick said, looking unconvinced. "Well perhaps it would serve you better to actually attempt the spell rather than simply talking. I'm happy to allow collaboration during my classes, but if actual work isn't getting done, I will have to separate the five of you."

"Of course Professor, we understand," James nodded. "We'll get back to work."

"Very good," Professor Flitwick nodded. "And Andrew?" Andrew looked back up at the Professor. "In the future, it would do well for you to arrive to class on time."

As Professor Flitwick turned and walked away, Andrew's face lit up like a bright red tomato.

"Well, I guess she did notice after all," Ashley said, amused. "Nice try."

"At least she didn't take points," Lucy pointed out while Andrew continued to look mortified. "That was nice."

"I can't ever be late again," Andrew muttered to himself.

"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad," James rolled his eyes. "Don't make this into something it's not. She didn't even care."

"Come on, let's just work on the spell," Ashley insisted, re-focusing the group on what they were supposed to be doing. "Tina, you've been awfully quiet today, do you want to give it a go?"

"I guess so," Tina replied softly, readying her wand and pointing it at her box. "_Aberto."_

LlLlLlLlLlL

While none of the first years got the spell on their first try, almost everyone in class had managed at least one successful attempt by the time the lesson was over. For homework, Professor Flitwick instructed them to open anything and everything they could find with magic, in an attempt to really solidify the learning and make sure that they knew what they were doing. The unlocking spell would only be that much harder if they hadn't mastered the opening spell, after all.

As a result, the castle suddenly became overrun with rampant first year magic. Every closed door, container, drawer, and cabinet were suddenly and wildly magically opening all over the place.

"_Aberto_," Lucy pointed at a random door as she and her friends passed through a corridor on the sixth floor.

The door flew open to reveal the gobstones club in the middle of a very intense game.

"Hey! You broke my concentration!" the player who'd just thrown his stone cried angrily. His stone had gone in the complete wrong direction, probably losing him the game.

"Sorry," Lucy called back, hurrying forward to escape.

"_Aberto_," Andrew pointed at the next door they came across.

When it swung open, it revealed the sixth year student lounge, filled with a mixture of Slytherin and Ravenclaw students at the moment.

"Get out of here," one of the sixth years called out. "First year lounge is on the first floor."

"Don't worry, we weren't going to come inside," Andrew informed them as the group kept on walking.

They came to the next door and Tina got her wand ready. "_Aberto,"_ she said shyly. When the door didn't open, the group stopped so that she could repeat the spell. "_Aberto_," she repeated more forcefully.

The door swung open to reveal an empty classroom. From the state of the furniture and the amount of dust covering everything, it looked like it probably hadn't been used in years.

The group continued on their way, only two more doors between them and the stairs that would take them up to the seventh floor and the Gryffindor common room.

Ashley went next, pointing her wand at the upcoming door and uttering the words to the spell. "_Aberto_."

The door slammed open to reveal another classroom, this time not empty. Professor Thicket was sitting behind a desk, a blackboard full of strange symbols behind him.

"Can I help you students with anything?" he asked. "Perhaps you're curious about the study of ancient runes. Just because you're not in third year yet doesn't mean it's too early to start learning."

"No thank you, Professor," Ashley replied. "We were just practicing our charms."

"Another time then," Professor Thicket nodded, pointing his wand at the door and magically closing it – a spell Lucy looked forward to covering soon.

They kept walking and came to the final door. James readied his wand, and without stopping, pointed it at the door and uttered the incantation. "_Aberto_."

The door opened to reveal a couple of seventh year Gryffindors locked in an intimate embrace. As soon as the door opened, they broke apart to glare at the group of first years on the other side.

"What do you think you're - ?" the boy, who Lucy was their Head Boy, Kurt Robins, cried, grabbing his shirt off the ground and throwing it at the girl to cover up.

"Sorry," James said in surprise. His eyes were wide and he looked like he would have preferred to be anywhere but there.

"Get out!" the girl, who looked suspiciously like Maybelle Hudson, their Head Girl, screamed at them.

The first years scrambled down the remainder of the corridor at lightning speed and raced up the stairs as fast as their legs could carry them.

"Well that was an adventure," Ashley muttered when they stopped at the top to catch their breath.

"Yeah, maybe we shouldn't go around opening random doors anymore," Lucy suggested as they headed towards the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"We should probably stick to jars and boxes and things like that," Andrew agreed. "Things where we know what's inside."

"_Aberto_," James incanted, pointing his wand at the Fat Lady.

The Fat Lady crossed her arms. "That is not the password," she declared. "And magic like that is not going to work on me."

James sighed. "_Chimera_," he stated the current password instead.

"Proceed," the Fat Lady nodded, as she swung open to reveal the common room.

The five first years climbed in and claimed some seats over near the staircases.

"You know what I wonder?" Ashley mused. "What would happen if we tried the spell on each other? Like, if your eyes were closed, would the spell make them open? Or if your mouth was closed?"

"We should try it," James readily suggested. "Here, try it on me."

Ashley readied her wand, and James closed both his eyes and mouth as everyone waited to see what would happen.

"_Aberto_," Ashley declared, waving her wand in front of James' face.

Immediately, James' eyes flew open and his mouth widened, but things didn't stop there.

"I feel constant pressure to live up to my father's legacy, but know I'll always fail because I'll never do anything close to what he did," James declared matter-of-factly. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, James' eyes widened in horror and he slapped his hands over his mouth.

"I didn't mean to say that!" he cried, his face getting red. "I don't know where that came from!"

And right then, it dawned on Lucy. "The opening spell," she said. "If we use it on a closed item, it opens up. If we use it on a closed off person, they open up. It made James open up about the one thing he had closed the door over."

"Just for the record, what I said is so not true," James insisted, feeling incredibly self-conscious. "I don't know what that spell thinks it's doing, but it's obviously just forcing us to spew random nonsense."

"Oh don't play that game," Lucy rolled her eyes. "I know the pressure of living up to Uncle Harry is a real concern of yours. Just own it and move on. You're being a baby."

"Oh yeah?" James countered. "Well how would you feel if someone used the spell on you?"

"That's not – "

"_Aberto_," James said, casting the spell in Lucy's direction.

Suddenly, without any control on her part, Lucy's mouth opened and words that weren't in her head started to spew forth.

"I feel completely overshadowed by Molly and her grades, and I know that I'll never live up to the standards that she's set for me and my teachers will always look down on me for now being as smart as her."

As soon as she regained control of her mouth, she clamped it closed and tried to avoid eye contact with the group. Honestly, she hadn't even realized that those feelings were in her, but now that they'd been said aloud, she had to admit, she had been feeling a little bit of shame whenever she didn't get an O on an assignment, or manage to cast a spell on her first try like she was sure Molly always could.

"Okay, this isn't fair," Ashley said. "Let's stop, we're forcing each other to reveal things we wouldn't say if we could control ourselves."

"Well you started it," Andrew insisted, pointing his wand at her and casting the spell. "_Aberto_."

"I watched my father die when I was six, and I've spent the past five years trying to block the memory out, even though I know I'll never truly recover from the trauma," Ashley blurted out.

Tears immediately sprung to her eyes and Tina, who'd been quiet the entire time, jumped to her rescue.

"She said she didn't want to do this anymore," Tina cried accusatorily at Andrew. "She said we should stop. She didn't know what was going to happen when we started, but she clearly didn't want the spell used on her."

"I'm sorry, I – "

"Here, if you're so keen to dish it out, then see how it feels," Tina cried, pointing her wand in his face and practically shouting the spell. "_Aberto_."

"I was so afraid I wouldn't make friends when I came to Hogwarts, and even now I'm afraid you guys will realize I'm no fun to be around and ditch me, and I'll be a loner for all of my seven years here," Andrew said, even as he tried to force his mouth closed with his fingers.

"Okay, I think it's time to st – " Lucy began, but Andrew already had his wand in hand and had pointed it at Tina.

"_Aberto_," he cried.

"I secretly have a crush on James," Tina revealed, immediately blushing a spectacular shade of red and then jumping up and retreating up the stairs to the girls' dormitories in embarrassment.

For a few awkward moments after that, there was silence from the group. It was finally broken when James started to speak.

"Well I had no ide – "

"You guys are jerks," Lucy declared, angrier at Andrew than at James. "That was completely uncalled for."

"What about you guys? You cast the spell on us just as much as we did on you," Andrew defended.

"Actually, I never cast the spell," Lucy pointed out. "Ashley only cast the first one, and Tina only did it after you attacked Ashley."

"You know what?" Ashley jumped in. "I think we're all done here for now. Come on Luce, we should check on Tina."

"You're right," Lucy agreed, getting up and ditching the two boys. "And let's all promise not to use the opening spell on people anymore."

"Agreed," James nodded.

"Agreed," Ashley chimed in.

Andrew didn't speak for a moment and then met Lucy's gaze with an apologetic look. "Agreed."


	4. December Year 1

_Year 1: Right to Write_

Chapter 4: December 2016

As the Christmas holidays drew near, so did the final Quidditch game of the term, Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff. For Lucy and the newspaper club, that meant pre-game articles on the respective teams. Kate had planned for three pre-game articles. One would be about who was favored to win based on a poll taken throughout the school, and the other two would be interview articles with members of the respective teams. Lucy had been assigned to fact-check the Gryffindor team interview article and was quite looking forward to the task.

"Alright, here you go," Terrence said one day, handing Lucy the article as he was on his way out of their latest newspaper club meeting. "Everything should be good, shouldn't take you longer than an hour or so to go through it. Mostly it's just quotes anyway."

"I'll make sure Kate gets this as soon as I'm through," Lucy promised, tucking the article into her bag. She was particularly excited about fact-checking this article because some of the subjects were people she knew. The team's seeker and beaters were friends of her cousin, Dominique. One of the team's chasers was a friend of her sister, Molly. Both the keeper and another of the chasers were in Victoire's year, though Lucy wasn't confident they were necessarily friends with Victoire.

When Lucy got up to the Gryffindor common room, it was to find that none of her friends had yet returned from their own club meetings. So Lucy sat herself down in a nearby armchair and pulled out Terrence's article, ready to take her first pass at it.

_With the upcoming Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff Quidditch game right around the corner, his reporter took the opportunity to sit down with the members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team to see how they're feeling. This will be the first game this particular line-up will play, and there are a number of new faces on the roster this year._

Lucy was immediately unimpressed with Terrence. First of all, everyone knows you don't start a sentence with a preposition, not to mention the article as a whole.

_To start things off, I sat down with Tom Kelley and Miles Bailey, Gryffindor's brand-new beaters, both in their fourth year at Hogwarts._

Lucy had to pause to roll her eyes again. Everyone knows you don't use the first person 'I' when writing an article, unless it's an opinion piece, which this was not. It was like Terrence didn't even care.

_Q: Miles, Tom, how do you feel heading into the upcoming game against Hufflepuff?_

_T: I feel really good about it. While Hufflepuff does have one returning beater from last year [fifth year, Dianne Markson], I don't see much cohesion between her and the new guy [third year, Trent Harper]._

_M: Yeah, we're much more in sync than the Hufflepuff beaters, and I think that's going to be the reason we win this game._

_Q: Do you feel that part of the reason the two of you are more in sync than the Hufflepuff beaters is because you're in the same year and therefore knew each other better before joining the Quidditch team?_

_M: That's definitely a part of it. Tom and I have been friends since first year, that's no secret, so there's definitely that aspect. But I think what gives us an edge is that even before we joined the Quidditch team, like when we would practice and stuff, we always practiced as a team._

_T: It's why we made the team in the first place. All the other prospective beaters were working alone, but we were always working together. _

_M: When it comes to Quidditch, obviously the entire team needs to be cohesive, or else they could never win, but the beaters specifically really need to be on the same page. One of the most dangerous parts of the game are the bludgers, and if the beaters aren't in sync, they can really destroy a team's chances._

The interview with Tom and Miles came to an abrupt end at that point, and Lucy sighed heavily. There were so many more questions Terrence could have asked them – about their technique, their strategy, more detailed thoughts on the beaters for the other team.

Shaking her head, Lucy forced herself to read on.

_After my sit down with Miles and Tom, I arranged an interview with the final new member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, third year chaser Sarah Radford._

_Q: Not only are you one of the three newest members of the team, but you're also the youngest. Do you find it challenging having everyone on the team be older than you?_

_S: I don't think I would say my age is much of a factor. Definitely the fact that this is my first year on the team makes things different for me. I've never played a full game of Quidditch before, besides the ones Madame Volant has us do towards the end of first year in flying lessons, but those don't really count. I didn't make the team for nothing though, so regardless of my age and level of experience, I definitely have the skills or I wouldn't be here today._

_Q: Speaking of this being your first real Quidditch game, how do you feel going into that? _

_S: I feel excited mostly. I know what I'm doing, and we've been practicing almost non-stop. I'm ready to put everything I've learned to good use, and I've got a great team flying with me._

When the interview with Sarah Radford ended after only two questions, Lucy began to see a pattern emerging. Why Terrence would stick to only two questions per interview, she couldn't understand. Two questions was barely anything. Hogwarts would surely want to know more.

_After interviewing Gryffindor's newest chaser, this reporter sat down with two of Gryffindor's returning players, chaser Caitlin Bell and keeper Adrian Carter, both in their sixth years._

_Q: Since you've both been on the team for the past couple of years, how would you say this year's team compares to last year's?_

_C: We definitely lost some big faces this year. Kayla Thompson and Tyson Perry had been on the team even longer than we have. But I do feel good about the team we're putting forward this year. Kurt's done a great job with everything, and I think we stand a pretty good chance of not just winning this game, but of winning the Quidditch Cup at the end of the year._

_A: I agree. Even though it was really hard to have to replace some of our graduated players, we've got a strong group of players this year, all extremely dedicated to the team and to winning._

_Q: What about the Hufflepuff players you'll be up against? How do they compare to last year's team?_

_A: Well with all three of Hufflepuff's chasers returning from last year, I expect to face pretty much the same types of maneuvers as I did when we faced off with them last time. As team keeper, my main focus is just preventing the chasers from scoring any goals, and I feel pretty confident that I know what to expect from those three._

_C: I'll be facing a bit of a different challenge, given that the Hufflepuff team had to replace their keeper this year. I've never had to go up against Laura [Laura Fawcett, second year], and I don't really know what to expect from her. She must be good, to have made the team, but there will have to be some degree of improvisation on my part and that of the other chasers on the team as we learn what her strengths and weaknesses are._

As she kept on reading, Lucy became more and more aware that Terrence still hadn't asked a single question about strategy, specific maneuvers they were working on, or anything technical about Quidditch itself. It was almost like Terrence didn't really know much about the game, which Lucy thought was terribly lame. If he was going to be writing an article about Quidditch, he should understand the subject he was writing about. Just because he happened to be in Gryffindor shouldn't be the only reason he'd gotten this assignment.

_Next, I sat down with Gryffindor's returning seeker, fourth year Brooke Hill._

_Q: Brooke, you faced of with Hufflepuff seeker Maya Watson [sixth year] last year, and came out victorious. Do you expect a similar win this time around?_

_B: Absolutely. Maya's a great seeker, but she's nothing compared to me. I'm going to wipe the skies with her._

_Q: Do you feel like the changes in team members this year will affect how you handle yours or Maya's seeking?_

_B: I don't know about Maya, but as for myself, not in the slightest. Sure, Quidditch is all about teamwork and cooperation and communication and all that important stuff. But for a seeker, there's an individual aspect that you don't necessarily see in the other positions. As long as I can trust that the beaters are keeping the bludgers away from me, and that the chasers and keeper are ensuring that the other team doesn't get more than one hundred and fifty points ahead of us, I don't have to think about them. All that matters to me is myself, the other seeker, and finding that snitch. So it doesn't matter who else is playing the game. They don't change how I play my game._

Brooke's interview felt ridiculously unfinished, but of course, Terrence had reached his maximum two questions and so the article moved on.

_Finally, I sat down with Gryffindor Quidditch Team Captain, Kurt Robins [seventh year] for one final interview._

_Q: This will be your second year as team captain. How will you do things differently than last year?_

_K: Last year was a good year for Gryffindor. Sure, we ended up losing to Slytherin in the final game, but we played well and we worked as a team. I have modified our training strategy a bit to account for what we should have done in that final game last year, and I feel much better about where we stand now than where we stood this time last year. _

_Q: Now that you're in your seventh year, this is your last chance to win the Quidditch Cup. Do you think you can do it?_

_K: I definitely think we stand a chance. A lot will depend on how we do in this game and the next one in March against Ravenclaw. If we can win by larger margins, then we'll be coming into our game against Slytherin with much better footing. Honestly, I'd love to be able to say that I won Gryffindor the Quidditch Cup as captain in my seventh year. It would be a great way to go out. But there are three other captains all vying for the same thing, so I'm definitely not counting them out yet._

_And there you have it. Confident, determined, and ready to fight for the title of Quidditch Champions, the Gryffindor Quidditch team is excited to head into their first game of the season, this Saturday afternoon, Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff._

Lucy finally came to the end of the article and had to put it down and close her eyes for a moment. It was such the opposite of what she would have expected from Terrence. Over the course of the past few months, she'd fact-checked many of his articles, but none had been this bad. The interviews were short and superficial, the questions obvious and overdone. It was like Terrence hadn't put any effort into this whatsoever.

Then Lucy had an idea. She had connections to almost all the players on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. If she wanted to, she could re-interview them, fix the article up, and prove to Kate that she was deserving of writing articles of her own, even though she was only a first year.

With renewed vigour and a bounce in her step that hadn't been there before, Lucy gathered her things and began her search for her family members in the hopes that they would be able to get her the interviews she needed.

LlLlLlLlLlL

"What in the name of Merlin's underpants is this supposed to be?" Kate demanded.

Startled, Lucy took a step back and tried to understand what she'd done wrong. Over the past two days, she'd managed to re-interview all the members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, asking questions about their training and what methods they were going to use to beat Hufflepuff. She'd fixed up Terrence's article and had brought it down to Kate as soon as she'd finished it, ready for the praise and commendation she was convinced she was due.

"It's the interview article for the Gryffindor Quidditch team," Lucy replied nervously. "The one I fact-checked for Terrence."

"Terrence submitted a copy of his article to me two days ago, right after passing it on to you. This looks nothing like it," Kate said.

"Well, I might have spruced it up a bit," Lucy replied. "But you have to admit, Terrence's article wasn't very – "

"Terrence's article was exactly what I wanted it to be. He followed my instructions exactly, which is more than I can say for you. You are a _fact-checker_. Your job is to check the facts, not re-do interviews, not re-write parts of articles you don't like, not introduce new information. You're not even supposed to take things out. You're supposed to read through the article, and if you find anything you don't think it factual, you're supposed to circle it in red, explain why it's not factual, and then submit the article to me for editing.

"But I thought – "

"You thought you'd re-write Terrence's article, and that it would be so much better than his, and that you'd get all the glory and become a full-time writer, even though you haven't even finished your first term? Well you thought wrong," Kate spat.

"But Terrence didn't even talk about strategy or formations, or anything like that," Lucy insisted. "His article was all surface talk, nothing went any deeper."

"Don't you think there was a reason for that?" Kate demanded. "We can't write about strategy in a pre-game article, or the other team would be able to just read the article and know all their secrets. The game would be lost before it was even played!"

"Oh," Lucy frowned, realizing that this was actually an excellent point. "But then… why did all the Gryffindor players tell me their strategies, just like that?"

"Because Quidditch players are dumb and don't think about the repercussions of their actions. They just want to talk about Quidditch, they don't think about who might be reading the article. Think about it. Of everyone you talked to, who's the one person who wouldn't share strategies with you?"

Lucy thought back for a moment and the answered. "Kurt Robins, the Captain."

"And why do you think that was?" Kate prompted.

Lucy sighed. "Because he wouldn't want to be revealing his strategy before the big game. I understand now."

"But you didn't think to ask or even think about it before completely re-writing the article," Kate continued. "You just shoved everything else to the side and did what you thought was best, regardless of anyone else's thoughts. That's not a mark of a writer, it's a mark of someone who doesn't have the level of maturity needed to be in the newspaper club."

"I'm sorry," Lucy said, hanging her head. All her plans, all her work, a total waste now. She should never have tried to circumvent the rules. First years were fact-checkers. It's how it had always been and how it would always be and Lucy had to get over herself and accept that there was still a lot she needed to learn before getting her own articles, and she couldn't just skip ahead to the end.

"Alright then," Kate nodded. "Now, I'm going to have to put you on probation. If you try anything like this again, I'll have no choice but to ask you to resign. We need solid, committed people who's first priority is the team, not their own fame, and certainly not who's only focus is getting their first byline."

"I understand," Lucy nodded. "It won't happen again."

With that said and done, Lucy was dismissed, and she hurried out of the room as quickly as she could, no longer wanting to be around Kate. She could feel her emotions bubbling up and wasn't sure where to go. She couldn't go to the common room. She couldn't face Ashley and Tina. Not after they'd been so accepting of the lowly first-year positions they'd been forced to take in their clubs, and then Lucy had gone and done this. And she couldn't go to the library, because Molly would surely be there and would only chastise Lucy for her actions.

Reaching the Entrance Hall, Lucy decided a nice walk outside would clear her head. It was an extremely cold day, and at the very least, the sharp stinging winter air would distract her from the shame and embarrassment she was feeling.

"Lucy?" a familiar voice caught Lucy off guard. "What are you doing out here?"

"What are _you_ doing out here?" Lucy frowned, turning around to find Andrew sitting on one of the benches by the front doors.

"Sometimes I like to come out here to think," Andrew replied. "The cold really brings my thoughts into focus. Things aren't so muddled out here."

"What kinds of thoughts are muddling your head?" Lucy wondered, taking a step closer and wondering whether she would be invited to sit down on the bench with him.

Andrew shrugged. "This and that. But you haven't actually answered the question yet."

"Oh," Lucy shrugged, not really wanting to get into it. "I did something stupid and I was embarrassed, so I came out here to get away from it."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Andrew wondered.

"Not particularly," Lucy shook her head. "Did you want to talk about your thing?"

"Not particularly," Andrew echoed Lucy's response. "Did you want to sit down?"

"Sure," Lucy smiled, taking the seat next to Andrew and facing out towards the snow-covered grounds. "Hey, it's actually really pretty out here."

"Yeah, it is," Andrew agreed.

The two lapsed into silence then, and just sat next to each other for a while. Eventually, both became too cold to stay outside any longer and headed back into the castle, agreeing that a nice hot chocolate by the fire in the common room with the rest of their friends was in store.

And somehow, without even realizing it, Lucy forgot about everything that had happened.


	5. January Year 1

_Year 1: Right to Write _

Chapter 5: January 2017

Although being home for the Christmas holidays was a nice break from classes and studying, Lucy found that it was lonely too. Even though she'd spent years living at home with just her parents and her sister, now that she had friends and had gotten used to spending every day with them, the days without them seemed to pass by way longer than they used to. And there wasn't very much interesting to do around the house, if Lucy was being honest. Going to Hogwarts had caused her to mature quite a bit in quite a short time, and suddenly all her toys and games seemed childish. Molly wasn't much help, as all she wanted to do was study every second of every day. And with her parents both at work, Lucy was mostly left to her own devices.

So when, during the second week of holidays, Lucy's Muggle neighbors returned from visiting family in Ireland, Lucy became extremely excited. Her neighbors had a daughter, the same age as Lucy, named Emily, who'd been Lucy's best friend growing up.

"Hey Mom?" Lucy asked one morning at breakfast. "Can I go next door and play with Emily today? I'm getting really tired of being stuck in this house."

Audrey hesitated before answering. "I don't know honey," she said uncertainly. "It'll be a lot harder to hide your magic than it used to be before it developed. We don't want to breach the International Statute of Secrecy."

"I swear I wouldn't," Lucy promised. "Besides, now that I've started at Hogwarts, I know how to control my magic, so it would actually be easier, because I won't have any more of those accidents where I would do something magical without realizing it."

"That is true," Audrey agreed, her voice indicating that she was thinking about it seriously. "Alright then, you can go play with Emily. But you have to leave your wand at home. I don't want there to be any risk of her catching it on you. And besides, you aren't allowed to use magic outside of school anyway, so there's no reason to be carrying it."

Though Lucy didn't love the idea of leaving her wand behind – ever since starting at Hogwarts it had been like a third arm, always somewhere on her person – she understood the necessity of the precaution.

"And don't forget our cover story," Audrey reminded Lucy. "You and Molly are attending a private boarding school in America."

"Right," Lucy nodded. It wouldn't be too complicated of a lie. She was attending a boarding school after all, so she could probably get away with a slightly modified and non-magical version of the truth.

LlLlLlLlLlL

As soon as breakfast was finished, Lucy skipped over to her neighbor's house and rang the doorbell. She was excited to finally have someone her own age to talk to, after a week of being at home alone or with family.

"Oh Lucy! How wonderful to see you again," Emily's mother, Mrs. Randall, said when she answered the door.

"You too," Lucy smiled. "Is Emily home?"

"She'd just up in her room, and I know she was hoping to see you over the holidays," Mrs. Randall replied. "Go on up, you know the way."

After thanking Mrs. Randall, Lucy entered the house and walked the familiar route to Emily's room. Lucy had spent lots of time here over the years, especially since Lucy had never been allowed to invite Emily over to her house. The reason for the rule was obvious – it would be too easy for Emily to accidentally stumble across something magical. And it meant that whenever they'd played together, Emily and Lucy had either been at Emily's house, or else at the playground or some other outdoor location.

"Hi Emily!" Lucy said brightly when she came to Emily's open door.

The Muggle girl immediately spun around at the familiar voice and launched herself at Lucy.

"I can't believe you're here!" she exclaimed. "Mother said you would probably come home for the holidays, but I couldn't be sure. Oh, I want to hear all about your new school."

This is what Lucy had been afraid of. That Emily would want to hear all about Lucy's supposed adventures in America, rather than just live in the moment and play together. While Lucy could keep up the ruse on the surface, if Emily tried to delve too deeply into Lucy's boarding school life, there was a good chance she'd realize something wasn't right.

"Oh, you know, just like going to any school," Lucy shrugged, deciding that vague was the best approach.

"What would you know about going to school?" Emily said, crossing her arms. "Up until this year, you were homeschooled."

"That doesn't mean I don't know what school is like. I read. I watch TV," Lucy retorted.

"I thought you didn't own a TV," Emily shot back.

"Well no, we don't," Lucy agreed, remembering that of course, Emily would remember this fact. Apparently for Muggles, not owning a TV was exceptionally strange and when Lucy had first revealed it to Emily years ago, it had sparked quite the outrage on Emily's part. "But I've watched it plenty when I've been over here."

"Okay fine," Emily allowed, uncrossing her arms. "But come on, you've got to give me more than that. What're the other kids like? The teachers? Your classes? The food?"

Lucy figured it would be easiest to just give Emily what she wanted, while remaining as truthful as possible without revealing anything she shouldn't. "The kids are nice. One of my cousins is in my year, which made things easier in the beginning, because I already knew one person."

"Oh right," Emily nodded. "I forgot, your whole family goes to this school. What's so special about it anyway?"

Lucy shrugged. "Everyone in my family's gone there since before anyone can remember. At this point it's just tradition I guess."

"Weird that it would be a school in America," Emily mused. "You'd think they would have picked one closer to home."

"Yeah," Lucy said, laughing nervously. "Well actually, the school was originally here in Britain, but then it moved to America, so we just followed it."

Emily frowned for a moment, and Lucy was afraid she'd gone too far with the lies – she'd meant to keep those to a minimum. But then Emily smiled and nodded. "I guess that makes sense."

Lucy let out a sigh of relief and allowed herself to relax. Emily was still looking at her expectantly, and Lucy remembered she wasn't off the hook yet.

"The food's really good too. They serve everything buffet style, in the middle of these four long tables and you can just help yourself to anything you want," Lucy continued. This at least wasn't a lie.

"Do they have really strange food there?" Emily wondered. "Strange American food that we've never heard of before?"

Lucy shook her head. "Nothing too weird. Although I have definitely missed my mom's cooking."

Emily nodded. "And your classes? How are they?"

This was the part of the conversation Lucy had been worried about. She couldn't very well tell Emily about charms and potions and herbology. But she'd thought really carefully about it and was ready for the question.

"Well my history teacher, Professor Binns, is the absolute worst. He just drones on and on and doesn't even seem to realize there are actual people in the room. It's almost impossible not to fall asleep while he's lecturing. And my science teacher, Professor Abbott-Longbottom, she's really nice. We're focusing on chemistry right now and we've already done a few cool experiments. My cousin James, he got in trouble because he added something to one of his mixtures that caused a minor explosion, and he ended up with detention."

"Sounds like he deserved it," Emily stated.

"He claims it wasn't him though," Lucy continued. "There's this other guy who really doesn't like James, and James is convinced he added it in to get him in trouble. But there's no way of knowing really."

"I bet it was the other guy," Emily said. "Sounds like something an American would do. Speaking of, have you managed to make any friends, or are all the other students dreadful?"

"Well they aren't nearly as awesome as you are," Lucy said, knowing that Emily wouldn't like thinking she was being replaced as Lucy's best friend. "But yeah, I've made a couple friends. Their names are Tina and Ashley, and they're pretty cool."

"Tina and Ashley," Emily said, testing out the names. "I guess those aren't terrible names."

"Why would they have terrible names?" Lucy frowned.

Emily looked at Lucy like she ought to know the answer. "They're _American_," she replied. "Think of some of the American names you've heard."

"Okay, fair point," Lucy nodded. It was important to maintain the American ruse, and that meant Tina and Ashley had to be American for all intents and purposes. "But what about you? Tell me all about your new school!"

Emily had completed primary school the previous spring, and when Lucy had gone away to Hogwarts in the fall, Emily had started secondary school.

"Oh, it's nothing special," Emily shrugged, the excitement that had been in her voice while they'd been discussed Lucy's schooling disappearing. "I mean, it's all the same people, just in a new building."

"You mean there aren't any new faces?" Lucy frowned. "I thought this secondary school was a great deal bigger than your primary."

"It is," Emily nodded. "There are a few different primary schools that all graduated into my current school. But everyone pretty much hangs out with the people from their primaries. There isn't much intermingling. It's very clique-y."

Lucy nodded in understanding. "We kind of have that at my school. When we first arrived, we all got divided into different houses, you know, for boarding and stuff, and people almost exclusively hang out with the other people in their houses."

"Makes sense though, for a boarding school," Emily pointed out. "These are the people you're living with constantly. You'd think it would be different at a day school."

"Well it's still early," Lucy reminded her friend. "You'll be going to this school for years. I'm sure right now it's more of a comfort thing than anything else. People want to be with the people they already know. And if you want to make friends with some of the other girls, I say just go for it."

Emily grumbled. "It's so much easier for you. You started at a school where nobody knew each other, so everyone was looking to make friends. Nobody at my school needs to make friends because they already have a whole bunch."

The problem for Emily was that when she'd been younger, she'd had a speech impediment that had resulted in her being ostracized from most of her fellow classmates. It was part of why she and Lucy had become best friends – because Emily didn't have any friends of her own at school. As the years went on and Emily successfully completed her speech therapy, her social situation hadn't changed. She'd hoped that entering secondary school would help her to make some new friends, but it was clear that things were going to be harder than she'd thought.

"Maybe I can convince my mom to send me to America with you next year," Emily declared. "Then at least I'd have friends. I'd have you, and Tina and Ashley sound like good people. And I've only met your cousin James that one time, but he seemed pretty cool."

"Yeah, that'd be fun," Lucy said, trying to mask the sudden bolt of fear that ran through her. It wasn't just that Emily couldn't go to Hogwarts with her, but that if she got committed enough to pitch the idea to her mom and start looking into it, Lucy's story would start unravelling fast. There was only one course of action Lucy could take, and she knew it was a low blow. "But can your parents really afford something like that?"

The energy in the room was immediately zapped. Emily's shoulders sagged and the excited expression on her face turned to one of disappointment and sadness. "Oh. Right," she muttered, almost embarrassedly.

It wasn't that Emily's family was poor. They weren't rich, but they did well for themselves. They certainly didn't make enough to send Emily to school overseas. And while Lucy's family wasn't in much a different financial situation than Emily's, given that Hogwarts was a Ministry-funded public school and didn't actually have the exorbitant tuition an American boarding school would have, they of course had to pretend that they did have money – more than Emily's family did anyway.

"Hey, I'm sorry," Lucy said, trying to cheer Emily up again. "I didn't mean – "

"It's fine," Emily cut Lucy off. "You don't have to remind me that your parents can afford things that mine can't."

"It's not that – "

"No, it's cool," Emily insisted. "Forget about it. I'll just keep going to day school here in Britain, and you can go live it up in America with your cousins and Tina and Ashley."

There was an awkward silence following this where Lucy didn't know what to say.

"Ashley farts in her sleep," she finally said. She wasn't sure how Emily would react to this, but prayed that it worked.

For a moment, Emily just stared at Lucy blankly, but then she burst into laughter.

"Are you just saying that, or is it true?" she asked.

"Oh no, I'm serious," Lucy assured her. "It's disgusting. Stinks up the whole dorm. I usually have to get up in the night to open a window, which is really not ideal in the middle of winter when it's cold outside. Faith can't stand it – she's another one of our dormmates. She hasn't said anything to Ashley yet, but I can tell it's coming."

The revelation of this small fact did exactly what Lucy had meant it to do. It had distracted Emily from thinking about her family's financial situation in comparison to Lucy's, and it had given her something to hold against Ashley, whenever she thought of Lucy off in America with her new friends. Lucy knew Emily couldn't be happy about the fact that she was off making new friends while Emily was stuck here struggling.

"And Tina?" Emily asked. "Tell me something about Tina."

Lucy bit her lip. On the one hand, she felt kind of bad betraying her new friends like this. On the other, they would never meet Emily, and Emily clearly needed this.

"Tina's got this really embarrassing crush on my cousin, James. Every time he's around, it's like she can't speak or anything. And then he found out, and ever since she's been avoiding him because she can't look him in the eye," Lucy replied.

"What did James say when he found out?" Emily asked curiously.

Lucy shrugged. "Not much. The whole bunch of us – Tina, Ashley, James, his friend Andrew, and I – were in a bit of a fight when the whole thing came out, and Ashely and I took off after Tina pretty much right away, so I don't know if he said anything to Andrew. But he hasn't said anything to me about it since, so I'm assuming he's just hoping it'll all go away."

"That's so sad," Emily said. "I bet Tina's just so humiliated by the whole thing."

"She is pretty embarrassed. It wasn't her fault exactly that he found out, but still," Lucy agreed.

LlLlLlLlLlL

The two girls spent the rest of the day doing all the things they used to do. They went to the playground for a while and swung on the swings, came back for lunch and then got permission from Mrs. Randall to use the kitchen to bake brownies. Afterwards, Emily insisted on continuing her education of Lucy by way of the TV and popped in a DVD that Lucy had never seen before but that Emily insisted every eleven-year-old in America would be familiar with, and therefore Lucy had to watch before going back.

It wasn't until dinnertime that Lucy heard Audrey calling for her from the front porch, signifying that Lucy's time at Emily's house was done for the day.

"Will you come back tomorrow?" Emily asked hopefully. "I don't have school again until next week."

"I'll have to check with my mom," Lucy replied. "But if she says yes, then I'll definitely come back."

LlLlLlLlLlL

All too soon, the Christmas holidays came to a close. Lucy had spent a few days with Emily before having to return to Hogwarts, and when she'd finally had to say goodbye, it had been difficult.

When she'd left for Hogwarts the first time, she'd been so worried about the unknown, that there hadn't been much room for anything else in her head besides her nerves and her excitement. This time, Lucy was a mixture of sadness for having to leave Emily behind again, and joy because she would get to see Tina, Ashley, and everyone else.

While she and Tina and Ashley had a great dynamic and got along really well, she and Emily had a history together. While she didn't have to hide anything from Tina and Ashley – like the fact that she was a witch – Emily knew her better than anyone. But Emily was a Muggle and Tina and Ashley were fellow witches, and Lucy knew which friends society would prefer her to have. The problem was, she wasn't ready to let go of Emily yet, especially knowing that Emily was having such trouble at her new secondary school.

So as the Hogwarts express pulled out of King's Cross station, and Lucy's friends immediately started telling stories of their Christmas holidays and adventures they'd been on, Lucy pulled a quill and parchment from her trunk and began to compose a letter to Emily. She would owl it to her mother and ask her to deliver it next door, because obviously an owl couldn't bring it to Emily directly. But Lucy knew that it was important for Emily to know that Lucy missed her, and hadn't forgotten about her while off living her new glamorous life.


	6. February Year 1

_Year 1: Right to Write _

Chapter 6: February 2017 

"_An angry centaur blocks your path. You have encroached on his territory. He gets out his bow and arrow to shoot, so you turn and run. Move back four spaces_," Ashley read off the card. "Sorry Tina."

With a sigh, Tina reached for her game piece and moved it back the appropriate number of spaces on the board. "Oh don't worry, I'll catch up," Tina declared determinedly.

Lucy, Tina, and Ashley were up in the Gryffindor common room playing a game of _Cauldrons and Curses_. It was a wizarding boardgame where the winner was the first person to advance through the board to the cauldron of gold waiting at the end. But the board was filled with curses that they had to carefully avoid. Something Tina had just failed to do, thus the moving back four spaces.

"Alright, my turn," Lucy declared, grabbing an activity card from the pile. "_Sing a little song_," Lucy read. "_Hum the lyrics to a well known song. If your fellow players can guess the song correctly, take a cauldron card. If they cannot, take a curse card_." Lucy put the card back in the pile. "Ugh!" she cried. "I'm terrible at these. I can't carry a tune to save my life."

"Too bad Tina didn't get that one," Ashley pointed out. "She's got an amazing voice."

"Yeah, and I could really use the cauldron card after that major curse," Tina added.

"Wanna trade?" Lucy offered. "You take this card and I'll take your next card."

"Oh no," Ashley shook her head. "You drew the _sing a little song_, so now you have to do it. Unless you want to forfeit and draw a curse card right now?"

Lucy didn't want to forfeit. So, very self-consciously, she started to hum the lyrics to one of her favorite wizarding songs from her childhood; _wave, wave, wave your wand_.

Tina guessed it almost right away, and then grabbed Lucy's cauldron card from the pile. "_You help an elderly wizard up the stairs into his house. As a thank you, he lets you use his fireplace, which is connected to the floo network. Floo to the nearest red space_," she read.

Lucy smirked. The nearest red space was a full six spaces ahead, which meant she was advancing past Ashley. "Look who's winning now," Lucy said in a sing-song voice.

"Not for long," Ashley grumbled, grabbing the next activity card.

"Hey, so how are you doing with our latest transfiguration assignment?" Tina asked while Ashley completed her activity card. It was a solo activity, giving Tina and Lucy a moment to talk.

"Not bad," Lucy replied. "I've only got the last few questions left. But it's a lot difficult than the stuff from last term. I mean, transfigurations using animate creatures? I didn't think we'd be doing anything like that until third year at least."

"Yeah," Tina nodded. "I've been having trouble with the un-animating part of the transfiguration. Like that spell with the mice we were working on the other day. I can't turn the mouse into a snuffbox, because I don't know where the mouse is going. Am I killing the mouse? And if I un-transfigure it, and it becomes a mouse again, where did the mouse come from?"

Lucy frowned. "It came from the snuffbox," she replied. "That's what transfiguration is. Rearranging particles to look like something else."

"No, I don't mean the physical form of the mouse," Tina shook her head. "I mean the mouse's soul. Because I'm assuming the mouse does have a soul, since it's a living thing, but the snuffbox doesn't, because it's an inanimate object. So, when I turn the mouse into a snuffbox, where does its soul go? And when I turn the snuffbox back into a mouse, where is the soul coming from?"

Lucy shook her head, too overwhelmed by the philosophy that Tina was throwing at her.

"I don't think we're supposed to be reading that far into it," Lucy replied.

"But just think about it!" Tina insisted. "If I turn a mouse into a snuffbox and then back into a mouse, is it even the same mouse? Or have I created a whole new mouse?"

"It's a mouse," Lucy frowned. "Does it really matter?"

"Of course it matters!" Tina exclaimed. "Think about the implications this could have for more advanced transfigurations. Think about human transfiguration. When we transfigure ourselves into inanimate objects, do we come out the same people? Or do we come out different people with all our memories from our former life, but forever changed?"

"I think you're going to have to ask Professor Tonks these questions," Lucy replied. "This is way beyond my ability to answer."

"But it's something to think about, isn't it?" Tina asked.

"Sure," Lucy nodded. Honestly, she'd never really thought about transfiguration so deeply, and she hadn't really wanted to. Certainly not this soon at least. It was a lot easier to just do the spells Professor Tonks was assigning and go from there.

"I just – I can't do the assignment when I don't fully understand what's happening to the mouse," Tina complained. "I just feel like this is a moral grey area."

"Sure," Lucy pretended to agree. "Definitely talk to Tonks about that one though."

"Yeah, I think I will," Tina agreed.

Ashley returned from her solo quest then, and having completed it properly, she took a cauldron card and advanced three spaces, still remaining behind Lucy.

"Ha!" Lucy laughed at Ashley, a little rudely. "I'm still in the lead. And I'm only going to keep getting closer from here."

The game went on for another half hour, and then concluded with a surprise ending where Tina won the cauldron of gold. Lucy and Ashley were both shocked. They'd been so close to the end of the board, and Tina had been lagging behind, but she'd drawn a cauldron card that had permitted her to jump to one space ahead of the player in first place, and then on her next turn she'd won the game.

As the three girls packed up the game for the night, they somehow found themselves back on the topic of transfigurations again.

"What if I transfigured the mouse into a candle?" Tina asked. "And then I lit the candle and all the wax melted and there was nothing left but a wick? Now I can't transfigure the candle back into a mouse, so does that make the mouse more dead, or the same amount of dead?"

"Why is the mouse dead at all?" Ashley frowned, not having been privy to the beginning of the questioning.

"Don't ask," Lucy rolled her eyes. "Tina's gone all existential about the mice in transfiguration."

"Why?" Ashley frowned. "They're just mice."

"Mice have feelings too you know!" Tina cried. "I'm just trying to understand."

LlLlLlLlLlL

The next day, Tina and Ashley had a collaborative choir/drama club meeting. They weren't sure why their two clubs were meeting together, but Lucy was feeling rather left out about the whole thing. So she sought out James and Andrew, figuring she'd spend some time with them in the girls' absence.

"Hey," Lucy said, eventually finding them in the library working on their homework. "Can I join you guys?"

"Of course," James agreed, gesturing to an empty seat. "What's up?"

Lucy shrugged. "Not much, just bored."

"Well get ready to be even more bored," Andrew announced. "Because we're working on history of magic."

"Yawn," Lucy muttered, saying the words instead of miming the action. "I don't understand why we have to learn such boring stuff. The history of laws? Really? What about all the wars that have happened? All the conflicts and battles? Why can't we learn about that?"

"We will," Andrew assured her. "But we have to learn this too."

"I don't see why," Lucy muttered, crossing her arms in protest.

"I don't think Professor Binns really cares about your opinion," James declared. "I think he's going to continue teaching what he's always taught for the rest of time."

"That doesn't mean I have to like it," Lucy said.

"No," James agreed. "But you still have to learn it." At that, he stood, pushing back his chair and dropping his quill. "I've got to use the bathroom," he declared.

"Thanks for sharing," Lucy joked.

James rolled his eyes and left.

"So, are you going to get your stuff out, or just watch us work all afternoon?" Andrew wondered.

Lucy thought about it. "I might just watch you work," she declared. "I don't feel like doing anything today."

"You'd better watch out!" Andrew warned. "If you get into that habit, you'll never get any work done, and then you'll fail and have to redo the year and you'll be a year behind the rest of us and you'll have to make all new friends and it'll be just terrible."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "And you accuse Ashley of being over-dramatic," she joked.

"She is over-dramatic," Andrew insisted. "I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it's true."

Lucy shrugged. "Well I think she's just the right amount of dramatic."

There was silence for a moment and then Andrew broke it.

"So are you going to work on your assignment or not?" he demanded.

Lucy groaned. "Alright fine, I'll work on it," she agreed reluctantly. "But please note that it's under protest."

"Whatever you say," Andrew chuckled, shaking his head at Lucy's antics. "Whatever you say."

LlLlLlLlLlL

After dinner that evening, Lucy, Tina, and Ashley were lounging around in their dormitory.

"So what was the whole joint drama/choir meeting about today?" Lucy asked curiously.

"Oh, it's so cool!" Tina exclaimed. "We're going to partner with the drama club for the end-of-year production and do all the singing for it."

"Oh!" Lucy exclaimed in surprise. "Is it a musical?" she frowned.

"No," Ashley shook her head. "None of the actors will sing. It'll just be interspersed with different songs that the choir will sing from the side of the stage."

"Yeah, it'll be set to music," Tina nodded.

"I guess I didn't realize there was a difference," Lucy shrugged. "But cool, sounds like it'll be a lot of fun."

"Yeah!" Ashley agreed. "And that means me and Tina will get to spend even more time together, because we'll have to have a lot more collaborative meetings once we start staging the performance and doing real rehearsals."

"That'll be fun," Lucy said, a little jealously. "I wish newspaper was somehow involved. Maybe I can convince Kate to have us write some kind of piece about the preparations and the process of putting the whole thing together. And then I could be involved too."

"Even if you did convince her, it's not like she'd ever let you write it," Ashley pointed out. "You're a first year. The most you could hope for would be to fact-check it."

Lucy sighed. "You're right," she agreed. "Maybe there's no point anyway."

The three lapsed into silence, and then to bring the atmosphere back up, Tina reached into her trunk and grabbed a bag full of candy.

"Who wants to share some Bertie Bott's beans?" she asked, shaking the container in her friends' faces.

"Where did all that come from?" Lucy demanded, jumping off her bed to paw through Tina's candy. There were chocolate frogs, licorice wands, sugar quills, fizzing whizzbees, and just about everything you could imagine. It was like a smaller-scale Honeydukes in there, not that Lucy had ever had the pleasure of visiting the famed candy shop.

"Christmas," Tina smirked.

"And you've kept it hidden all this time?" Ashley cried accusatorily.

"Well I didn't want everyone stealing it," Tina defended herself.

"So what's changed your mind?" Lucy wondered.

Tina shrugged. "It's not so much fun sneaking sweets when nobody's watching. It's much more fun to share."

She reached into the container of flavored beans and popped one into her mouth. Then she made a face and stuck out her tongue. "Eugh," she said in disgust. "I got soap."

Lucy cringed. She'd eaten soap once as a child, and she'd never made that mistake again.

Tina passed the container on and Ashley took one, smiling victoriously when hers was orange flavored.

She tossed the beans to Lucy, and nervously, Lucy reached in and chose one. She took a yellow-colored one, hoping for a nice lemon or banana flavor. Instead she got egg yolk – a rather bizarre flavor that she didn't quite know how to categorize.

They continued to pass the beans around for a while. Tina got kale, leather, and oatmeal cookie; Ashley got butter, dandelion, and paper; Lucy got pumpkin juice, dirt, and burnt sausage.

"Enough with the beans," Ashley insisted after she got a blood-flavored one and had to spit it out into her hand. "Let's play a game."

"Cauldrons and Curses?" Tina suggested.

"No," Ashley shook her head. "That's a kid's game."

"Exploding snap?" Lucy suggested.

Ashley shook her head again. "I don't like cards."

"Wizard's chess?" Tina suggested, unconvincingly.

Ashley just looked at her until she dismissed the idea.

"We could tell ghost stories!" Lucy exclaimed suddenly. It wasn't a game exactly, but it sounded like fun.

"Yes!" Ashley exclaimed. "And I have the perfect one."

"I don't know…" Tina hesitated. "I'm not a huge fan of scary stories."

"This one's not too scary, I promise," Ashley assured her.

With that decided, Ashley needed to set the scene. She pulled the curtains shut on all the windows and closed the door, plunging the room into darkness. Then she instructed Lucy and Tina to join her on her bed and she pulled the curtains tightly around them, making it even spookier. Then, using her wand, she cast a dim _lumos_ and pointed it upwards at her chin to give her face an evil look to it.

"A long time ago," Ashley began, "on the very spot where this castle now stands – "

"No way do you know a ghost story about Hogwarts," Tina insisted, rolling her eyes.

"Shut up and let her tell the story," Lucy muttered, elbowing her friend in the side. She wanted to enjoy this.

"Like I was saying," Ashley said, a slight edge to her tone. "On the very spot where this castle now stands, there lived a man and his wife. They lived almost completely isolated. You'd have had to travel miles to get to the next dwelling. It was just he and she, alone."

Lucy felt herself get chills. Nothing Ashley had said so far was particularly scary, but the atmosphere and the tone Ashley was using made the whole thing very eerie.

"One day, while the man was out tending to their farm – they lived on a farm you see – the woman was rummaging through his drawer in search of an item he'd claimed had recently gone missing. She was hoping he'd just misplaced it and that she could surprise him with it when he returned from his work. She'd never opened this particular drawer before; she'd never had to. And when she did, something that looked like a well-polished stick rolled to the front.

"The wife had no idea what it was, and curiously, she picked it up and began to examine it. It was nothing special, just a piece of wood. It was thicker on one end than the other, and more worn on the thicker end. She threw it in the air and then caught it, but still nothing happened. She did this a few more times, not for any particular reason, and then suddenly, red sparks started to shook from the narrow tip, raining all over the room.

"The bedspread caught fire, and the wife frantically filled a bucket of water to put out the flames. When the fire was out and she was safe once again, the woman inspected the wooden stick more closely. It had to be magic of some sort – a vessel. She knew it was dangerous and immediately wanted to run out to confront her husband about it.

"But she was afraid. If the vessel could do this kind of damage on its own, what could it do when wielded by someone who knew what they were doing? She couldn't have this kind of sorcery going on in her house, so that night, while her husband was sleeping, she slit his throat, killing him.

"Now the husband had been a wizard, and he'd been prepared for his death. So when his wife killed him, he didn't just fade out of existence. Instead he came back as a ghost. While his wife was sleeping, he drifted into their bedroom and started wailing as loudly as possible, waking her up.

"When she saw him, the wife screamed. She demanded to know how he was there, but he just went on wailing. She yelled at him to stop, but he either couldn't hear or wouldn't listen. She pleaded with him to leave her alone, but he wouldn't. She tried everything she could think of to block out the noise. She tried covering her ears, putting her pillow over her head, hiding in the closet, but nothing worked. If she tried to leave the house, he would follow her, there was no escape from the constant wailing.

"Eventually the wife was driven mad. She couldn't take it anymore. She was convinced her ears were damaged beyond fixing, and she knew he would never leave her alone for the rest of her life. So that night, the woman took the same knife she'd used to slit her husband's throat, and she slit her own.

"As soon as she was dead, the man stopped his wailing. Now that his wife was dead, the two of them could share eternity together in the afterlife. But the woman had been non-magical, and she never returned as a ghost.

"When the man realized this, he tried everything he could think of to kill his ghost self. Nothing worked. He couldn't slit his throat again, because his hands just passed through any object he tried to pick up. He couldn't drown himself, because he didn't need to breathe. He couldn't hang himself, because his neck would just pass through the rope.

"And to this day, on a very quiet night, you can still hear him wailing for his long lost wife," Ashley finished.

Lucy had chills.

"That wasn't scary," Tina scoffed, shaking her head and jumping off the bed, ripping the curtains back open. "You call that a ghost story?"

"I told you it wasn't a scary one," Ashley retorted. "And since there were ghosts in it, yeah, I call that a ghost story."

"I had myself all nervous," Tina complained. "I was afraid I was going to jump or scream, but mostly I just feel sad."

"You won't when you wake up in the middle of the night and hear that man wailing out on the grounds," Ashley warned.

"Was it even true?" Lucy wondered. "Did that really happen here?"

"Of course," Ashley vowed. "I wouldn't tell a lie."

Lucy didn't fully believe her, but she supposed she could pretend to maintain the illusion.

"Well I'm going to bed," Lucy declared, crawling off Ashley's and into her own. "It's getting late and we have class in the morning."

As Lucy drifted off to sleep, she thought how nice it was to have just good friends here at Hogwarts.


	7. March Year 1

_Year 1: Right to Write _

Chapter 7: March 2017

It was the end of the day. The first years were just wrapping up a transfiguration class, and Professor Tonks was handing back their latest essays.

"So I'm thinking we swing by the Great Hall for a snack after class," Lucy was saying to her friends, completely unconcerned about her essay mark. "I'm a little peckish and don't think I'm going to make it until supper."

"Agreed," Ashley nodded. "Then we can hang out until supper, and after supper, we can head to the library."

"But what about taking a nap?" Tina wondered. "We have astronomy tonight, remember?"

"We don't need to nap!" Ashley scoffed. "We're not ten anymore."

"Well I need to nap," Tina declared, crossing her arms. "Because I'd actually like to be able to pay attention to Professor Brunwell and not be falling asleep in class."

"Fine," Ashley huffed. "We'll go the library before dinner and then you can take your nap after while Lucy and I hang out in the common room."

"Actually," Lucy spoke up, "I'd like to take a quick nap too. Just an hour, maybe a bit more."

Ashley rolled her eyes. "Well fine then," she declared. "If you're both going to take naps, then I suppose I will too!"

At that moment, Professor Tonks came down their row and they stopped talking to receive their essays.

"Here you go Ashley, well done," Professor Tonks said, handing Ashley her essay. "Tina, nice work as always," she added, giving Tina her essay back. "And Lucy, here you go," she said, passing Lucy's essay over. "Next time, spend a little more time on it."

Lucy frowned. Had she not done well? She turned her essay over to find that she'd received an A. Her puzzlement only grew. She'd done well. She'd gotten a passing grade. Lucy knew she wasn't an O student, but an A was still a decent mark.

She turned to her friends. "How did you guys do?" she wondered. They must have gotten E's or O's to have received more positive comments than she did.

"E," Tina replied, showing Lucy her essay. Lucy nodded. Maybe Professor Tonks just preferred students to get E's.

Then Lucy turned to Ashley. "And you?" she wondered.

Ashley shrugged. "Just an A," she replied.

Lucy shook her head in confusion. "But I got an A too," she said. "And you got a 'well done' and I got a 'spend more time on it'."

Ashley made a face, as if to say what can you do? "Look, you got the A," she said. "So why does it matter."

Lucy realized she had a point. "True," she agreed. "I got the A, that's all that matters."

LlLlLlLlLlL

That night, three very well-rested Gryffindor girls headed up to the Astronomy Tower with two very sleepy Gryffindor boys.

"You should have taken a nap," Ashley chided Andrew and James. "Now you're going to be falling asleep in class."

"You didn't even want to take a nap!" Tina exclaimed. "You only took it because Lucy and I wanted to, and you had nothing better to do."

"I took one, didn't I?" Ashley retorted.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Come on, we're almost there," she said, coming up to the bottom of the stairs.

"Can't do it," James shook his head dramatically.

"What do you mean you can't do it?" Lucy demanded.

"Too many stairs," James insisted. "Too tired for climbing."

"Well you have to go to class, and class is up these stairs, so it looks like you're going to have to climb," Lucy declared.

"Can't you just levitate us to the top?" Andrew pleaded, just as pathetically as James.

"No," Lucy said, walking away from them and up the first few steps. "Either join us in class or stay here and get detention. It's up to you."

"Gosh, that was harsh, Luce," Tina muttered to Lucy, joining her in her climb to the Astronomy Tower.

"They're just being a couple of big babies," Lucy rolled her eyes. "They'll be fine."

When the girls reached the classroom, Professor Brunwell was waiting for them at the top of the stairs with a pile of essays in his hands.

"Ah, here we go," he said, rifling through them. "Tina, good work." He handed Tina back her essay and Lucy noticed an A at the top. As he grabbed Ashley's essay next, she noted that Ashley had received the coveted E. "Ashley, I was pleasantly impressed, keep it up." Ashley took her essay with a smile. "And Lucy," he said finally, grabbing hers from the very bottom of the stack. "Try a little harder next time."

Lucy looked down at her grade, and found yet another A staring back at her. What was the deal? Tina had received an A too, and all Professor Brunwell had said to that was 'good work'. So why was Lucy being held to higher standards? It wasn't fair.

"Just forget about it," Tina said, sensing Lucy's mood. "It doesn't matter, you have an A, you passed. That's all that matters."

"I'm just getting tired of this," Lucy said. Thinking back, she realized it had been happening all year. Her Professors were never satisfied with her grades. Anytime she received anything back, it was always with a 'try harder' or a 'you can do better' attached. "I'm doing the best that I can, and still they're never satisfied."

"Come on, just get your telescope set up," Ashley insisted, dragging Lucy and Tina over to a trio of empty spots to get set up for class. "Focus on class for now, worry about your assignments later."

LlLlLlLlLlL

The next day, Lucy was alert and on the lookout for any similar kinds of comments. They had history of magic first thing, but there were no essays being handed back in that class. They had transfiguration next, but since they'd just received their essays back the day before, there was nothing to return that day. It wasn't until charms after lunch that they received anything back.

Lucy waited patiently as Professor Flitwick made her way around the room. Of course she and her friends had chosen the furthest corner of the class to sit in that day, so they were the last ones Professor Flitwick got around to.

"Here you go Ashley," she said, handing Ashley back her paper. "Much improved." Lucy glanced over and saw that Ashley had received an E. "Tina, excellent work as always." She handed Tina's essay back and Lucy saw that she also had received an E. "And Lucy," she said finally, having only one essay left in her hands. "Good work, but next time, try to take it one step further."

Frowning, Lucy grabbed the essay and saw that she had an E, just like her friends. So what was Professor Flitwick's problem? If all three of them had the same grades, then all three of them should be getting similar comments back. Lucy didn't think it was fair that her Professors expected more from her for no reason at all. And she was determined to get to the bottom of it.

When class was over and the rest of the first years were headed to herbology, Lucy hung back.

"Lucy," Professor Flitwick said when she realized the girl was still there. "What are you doing here? You don't' want to be late to herbology."

"I won't be long," Lucy assured her professor. "I just wanted to talk to you for a second, if that's alright."

"Is it about your essay?" Professor Flitwick asked. "Because if so, I think it could really have been enhanced by a bit of outside research. There are tons of books in the library – "

"Actually, it wasn't that," Lucy interrupted. "I mean, it's about my essay, but it's not about making it better."

"Oh?" Professor Flitwick asked questioningly.

Lucy shook her head. "I was actually just curious about your comments," she said. "Both of my friends got E's as well, but I'm the only one you said needed to put more work into it."

"Well I just think your essay could have been a little better," Professor Flitwick said.

"Well sure," Lucy nodded. "But that goes for any essay that doesn't receive an O. If you don't get an O, it's because there's room for improvement. But you aren't asking Tina or Ashley to improve their essays, even though they also got E's."

"I'm not sure what you're implying," Professor Flitwick frowned.

"I just want to know why you expect more from me than other students," Lucy insisted. "Why am I held to a higher standard than they are? Because frankly, I don't think it's fair."

"I know you have the potential in you to be an O student," Professor Flitwick insisted. "I mean, your sister's essays – "

"This is about Molly?" Lucy asked. Suddenly everything made sense. She wasn't being held to a higher standard because of anything she'd done, but because Molly was an O student and the professors thought Lucy should be too.

"Well, I don't mean to say that – " Professor Flitwick tried to backtrack, but it was too late.

"So you're measuring me and my essays up to the quality of essay that Molly submits?" Lucy asked. "How is that fair?"

"I never said I was comparing you with Molly," Professor Flitwick said. "I only meant… I know that you have the capabilities of matching the quality of her essays if you would apply yourself."

"And what exactly has given you that impression?" Lucy demanded. "Our shared genetics?"

Before Professor Flitwick could respond, the next class started filtering into the room and Lucy deflated. She didn't have the will to argue about the issue anymore. It was obvious that all her professors were doing the same thing, so what was the point arguing with just one of them.

Without saying goodbye, or anything at all, Lucy turned around and walked out of class, now late for herbology. When she arrived, Professor Longbottom tutted at her, but didn't say much more, for which Lucy was grateful.

"So?" Ashley whispered to her when she sat down. "How did it go?"

Lucy shook her head. "Well I know what's going on now," she sighed. "But I don't feel any better about it."

Ashley looked at her questioningly, as if asking her to elaborate, but Professor Longbottom had begun his lecture and Lucy needed to pay attention.

"I'll explain later," she muttered, pulling out her notes and quill and titling the new section with the topic of the day.

LlLlLlLlLlL

When Lucy explained everything to Tina and Ashley after class, they were as outraged as she was.

"But that's not fair!" Tina exclaimed. "They can't compare you to someone else."

"Just because you're related doesn't make you the same person," Ashley added. "And besides, your sister is insane. That's the only reason she gets the grades she does. Because she has no life."

"Exactly!" Lucy agreed. "Anyone could get straight O's if they spent every waking minute of their life doing homework, but that's not me, and it's not fair to expect it of me. I have other things going on in my life. I have friends, I have newspaper club…"

"You should talk to someone about this," Tina suggested. "Maybe Professor Longbottom? He is our Head of House."

"Yeah, I think I might," Lucy agreed. "But first there's someone else I need to talk to."

Walking with purpose in the direction of the library, Lucy sought out her sister. She wasn't sure Molly would be in the library, but it was as good a guess as any, and when she arrived, she found that her hunch was correct.

"This is all your fault!" she exclaimed, storming up to her sister, who was browsing through books in the very small medical magic section of the library.

"Excuse me?" Molly asked in surprise, clearly not appreciating the hostile tone.

"All my professors expect me to be as smart as you, to get grades as good as you, and it's not fair!" Lucy cried.

"I don't see how that's my fault," Molly protested. "So I get good grades. That's my business. I'm allowed."

"But you're setting the bar too high," Lucy insisted. "I'm never going to be able to live up to the standards you've set."

"Again, I don't see how that's my problem," Molly replied. "Or are you suggesting that I get a few low grades on purpose to make things better for you?"

Lucy paused. Molly had a point. Lucy couldn't ask her to compromise her grades for Lucy. It was even worse than what the professors were doing to her.

"Ugh! Never mind," Lucy cried, wheeling around and storming out of the library again, leaving a very confused Molly behind.

"How did it go?" Ashley asked, amused, from the entrance to the library.

"I'm going to talk to Professor Longbottom," Lucy muttered in defeat. Her plan to talk to Molly hadn't gone at all how she'd planned. She honestly wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it certainly wasn't what had just happened.

When Lucy came to the herbology wing, she began knocking mercilessly on Professor Longbottom's office door. She was extremely worked up, and knew that she should probably take a walk to cool her head before talking to her professor, but also she was too far past the point of logic to reason with herself.

"Lucy!" Professor Longbottom said in surprise. "Can I help you with something?"

"Oh I think so," Lucy said, invading Professor Longbottom's office. She started pacing in front of his desk and Professor Longbottom looked at her, at a loss as to how to proceed.

"Can I do anything for you?" he offered gently. "Do you want a tea maybe?"

"No, I don't want a tea!" Lucy cried. "I want to stop being compared to Molly!"

"Why don't you take a seat?" Professor Longbottom suggested, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.

"I don't want to sit!" Lucy cried. "Everyone's always comparing me to Molly, and it's not fair. I'll never be as good as her. I'll never be as smart as her, and as long as people expect me to be, I'll always fall short."

The anger was slowly melting away, and all Lucy could feel was a sense of worthlessness. She started shaking and collapsed into the chair. Professor Longbottom grabbed some tissues from his desk drawer and passed them over to Lucy in case she needed them.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?" he suggested. "Who's comparing you to Molly."

"All of you!" Lucy exclaimed. "The professors. Professor Flitwick, Professor Tonks, Professor Brunwell… even you've done it on occasion."

"Have I?" Professor Longbottom said in surprise. "Well I'm very sorry if I have, but how, might I ask, have we been doing this?"

"It's not always super obvious," Lucy replied. "I didn't even realize it at first. But it's like whatever grade I get, none of you are ever satisfied with it. Tina and Ashley, sure. They get an E and you're over the moon. But when I get an E, or god forbid, an A, it's always 'room for improvement' or 'you can do better'. Maybe I can't do better. Maybe E's and A's are as far as it goes for me."

Professor Longbottom took in all that Lucy was saying and tried to process it. "Lucy, I don't know about the rest of your professors, but for myself, I've never expected you to produce the quality of work that Molly produces."

"That does not make me feel much better," Lucy frowned.

"Hear me out," Professor Longbottom insisted. "Molly's work is way beyond the level I would expect from any student. It's beyond what I even expect from Molly. But it's Molly's choice to spend all her time on her schoolwork and I won't fault her for that."

"But you'll fault me for not being like her," Lucy muttered.

"I thought you were going to hear me out?" Professor Longbottom retorted.

Lucy stayed silent and nodded for him to continue, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"I do not expect your work to be at the same level as Molly's," he repeated himself. "But when I read your work, it reminds me of Molly's work. You have a similar writing style, and you have a similar knack for identifying the important points and excluding the unimportant. I see the same potential in your work that I saw in Molly's when she first started at Hogwarts… the same potential I've seen in the work of many other students that aren't related to you. With a little extra work, I think you could be an E-average student as opposed to the A-average you're pulling right now."

"And Tina and Ashley?" Lucy wondered. "Why don't they get the same comments I get?"

"Honestly?" Professor Longbottom said. "Because it would take more work for them to improve their grades. When I look at your work, I think, an extra half hour on this essay, and she'd have gotten an O. When I look at Tina's or Ashley's, of course it has the potential to be better, but it would require more time and effort than I'm sure they're prepared to give."

Lucy sat back and thought about this for a moment. It was strange, hearing her professor say these things. She wasn't sure how she felt about the whole thing.

"Look Lucy," Professor Longbottom sighed. "If you want me to, I'll talk to the other Professors about the whole thing and ask them to treat you the same as the others. But I just think you should consider the fact that you do have that potential. And it has nothing to do with Molly being related to you, or us comparing you to her arbitrarily."

Lucy took a deep breath and then shook her head. "Don't talk to the other professors," she decided. "If you think I show potential, then I'll do my best to prove you right."

"That's the spirit!" Professor Longbottom said with a smile. "I'm glad we had this talk."

"Me too," Lucy replied, getting up and heading for the door. "Thanks Professor."

As Lucy joined her friends and they all headed up to the common room to relax before getting started in their homework, Lucy felt lighter. She'd been feeling like a failure, like she would never live up to her professor's expectations because her sister had set the bar too high. But in truth, she was so close to the bar, and her professors knew that she could reach it, that all along they'd been trying to convince her to make that jump and clear it.

Lucy wasn't sure what the future would hold. She knew she wouldn't be able to improve all her grades all at once. But she was going to try. Little by little, she was going to try. And maybe things would work out, and maybe she'd end up with the same grades she'd always gotten. But she was going to try.


	8. April Year 1

_Year 1: Right to Write_

Chapter 8: April 2017

With the beginning of April also came the beginning of spring. The last of the snow was melting, the rain was making flowers start to spring out of the ground, and the air was finally warming enough that Lucy could go outside without putting on her big winter cloak.

Meanwhile, classes were starting to pick up. Time was running out and exams were coming soon. Somehow, it seemed that either the professors had planned to have a sudden spike in assignments at the end of the term to boost studying, or else they were just unprepared and had suddenly realized they had more material left to cover than they'd intended. Lucy was betting on the second one.

In transfiguration, they were rushing to finish with inanimate to animate transfiguration so that they would have enough time to cover a basic theory of switching spells before the end of the year. In history of magic, they were way behind in their study of the history of wizarding economy and hadn't even covered the soap blizzard of 1378 yet. In astronomy, they'd spent too much time on planets and moons that they were rushing through the units on stars and constellations. It was almost too much, but the first years were handling it. Lucy just kept reminding herself that this was nothing compared to what she was going to face in her O.W.L. year, let alone once she reached N.E.W.T. level courses.

Most of the assignments were extremely boring. They were set lots of smaller essays, lots of basic question-and-answer assignments, and even a few minor projects, some group, some individual. But one day in defence, they were set an assignment that really peaked Lucy's interest.

They were wrapping up their unit on ghosts and about so start their unit on ghouls when Professor Derlid set them a most unique homework assignment. He instructed them to seek out three of the Hogwarts ghosts and write a small essay about their lives, with an extra-special emphasis on how they came to be a ghost, extra points to anyone who was able to find one ghost for each of the three possible causes of ghost formation which were fear, love, and guilt.

"This is going to be so much fun!" Lucy exclaimed eagerly to her friends after class was over.

"Fun?" Ashley complained. "It's going to be so much work. And I have enough to deal with without chasing ghosts all over the castle."

"How is this even useful?" Tina wondered. "How are we going to learn anything from this? We already know the facts about ghosts, why do we need to learn specific life stories?"

"It's a practical application of our knowledge!" Lucy exclaimed.

"But not even," Tina shook her head. "Not except for the part about how they became a ghost, and even then, we know the three possible causes."

"Come on though!" Lucy insisted. "Aren't you excited to talk to them, learn their stories, talk to them about their lives?"

"Not even a little bit," Ashley replied bluntly.

Though Lucy couldn't convince her friends to enjoy it, she was extremely excited to do the assignment. Interviewing the ghosts for her assignment would be almost as if she were interviewing someone for a newspaper article. Not only would it be great fun, it would also be great practice.

Lucy decided she wanted to get started right away. Since Ashley and Tina had another joint drama/choir meeting to go to, it was the perfect opportunity to seek out her first ghost. She decided to start with the one she was the most familiar with – her own house ghost, Nearly Headless Nick.

After asking around to a few people, Lucy found him floating around a deserted part of the seventh floor. She approached him, parchment and quill in hand, and ready for her first interview ever.

"Nick?" she called out tentatively, not wanting to startle him. When he didn't respond, she stepped closer. "Sir Nicholas?"

"Who's there?" he demanded, whirling around. When he saw that it was a fellow Gryffindor, he visibly softened. "Lucy my dear, what are you doing wandering around this part of the castle?"

"I was looking for you, actually," Lucy replied. "I wondered if I could ask you some questions about your life?" They'd been instructed not to bring up their deaths until they had to, as some ghosts could get touchy about the subject.

"This is for that ridiculous defence against the dark arts assignment, is it?" Nick replied gruffly. "Let's go then, I suppose there's no avoiding it."

Lucy wasn't sure about his attitude, but went ahead anyway. She pitied the students that left the assignment to the last minute and ended up having unresponsive ghosts who felt they'd told their story enough times and refused to be interviewed again.

"Alright, when were you born?" Lucy began with an easy question.

"June the eighteenth, of the year 1471," Nick replied. I was born a member of the royal court, and a wizard. At that time, it was not a good thing to have magic. It wasn't as bad as it had been, but there were still witch hunts going on, and you certainly didn't want to be caught by the wrong people."

"So you had to hide, the same way we hide from the muggles now?" Lucy asked.

"Not exactly," Nick shook his head. "At the time, there was no International Statute of Secrecy. We didn't hide from all muggles, just the ones that couldn't understand. But being a member of the royal court, we Mimsy Porpingtons had a lot more eyes on us than the regular folk. There was more pressure, and with that, the need to keep our magic quiet."

"Was it difficult?" Lucy asked.

Nick nodded. "It was at first. As a child, I couldn't understand why my parents wouldn't let me do certain things in public. None of it was bad, in fact, some of it was really good."

"But that changed?" Lucy prodded.

Nick shrugged. "When I was sent off to Hogwarts, it was different. I could be myself, be more open. I could do what I wanted. We didn't have laws at that time about underage magic either. There was no unified magical governing system. There was nothing to tell us what we could or couldn't do. It was every wizard for himself back then."

"And after Hogwarts?" Lucy asked.

"It was hard again," Nick replied. "When I finished my schooling, I was an adult. I still had my family obligations. I was immersed back into that life. I was bestowed a knighthood at a very young age – I saved a village from a boggart that had been driving them so mad that many were committing suicide. I lived at the royal court of King Henry VII. But I hated always hiding who I truly was."

"Then what happened?" Lucy prompted, sensing that Nick would finish the story without her having to ask outright.

"I met a woman. Lady Grieve. It was 1472, I'd been at court for a while by then, and I'd never seen her before. I was going for a walk in the park, and we ran into each other. I wondered why I'd never seen her before. She was old enough that I should have at least seen her once before. And then she revealed the reason. It was her teeth. She was ashamed of them."

"Of her teeth?" Lucy frowned, scribbling furiously as Nick spoke.

"They were crooked, you see. She was embarrassed, even just speaking with me. She kept her hand in front of her mouth for most of the conversation. And she was distressed. Her father was fed up of her hiding and refusing to go to court. He'd declared that she had one more day to come to terms with her looks and that the next day, he was presenting her in front of everyone, as a Lady should be presented if she'd ever to find a husband."

"Were the teeth that bad?" Lucy wondered.

"I didn't think so," Nick shook his head. "It was the sort of thing muggles today fix with orthodontia. Wizards of course have no such problems. With a simple spell, we can put them right. So I offered to do the spell for her. She was skeptical at first, but agreed in the end."

Nick trailed off for a moment, staring off into space, and Lucy had to prod him to finish his story.

"I botched the spell," Nick said regretfully. "It wasn't one I'd ever performed before. I should have practiced on myself first, or found a wizard who knew the magic better. But I was arrogant. And instead of straightening her teeth, she grew a tusk."

"A tusk?" Lucy asked in surprise.

"A single tusk. It was so much worse than crooked teeth. She didn't even give me the chance to put it right before she formerly accused me of witchcraft and had me condemned. I was put to death the very next day."

"And that's when they botched the execution?" Lucy asked, familiar at least with the end of the story. Every Gryffindor student knew the tale. How the axe they used to behead Nick had been too blunt and couldn't make a clean cut. They swung forty-five times before Nick was properly dead, and even then his head had never completely severed.

Nick nodded. "It was the most painful experience," he said. "I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."

"And after it was over?" Lucy asked. "You came back as a ghost?"

Nick nodded. "I had a choice, as I suppose we all do when we die. Go on, or stay behind as a shadow. I was afraid. I didn't know what lay ahead, and I knew that as a ghost I would never go through pain like that again. So I chose to remain, because I feared what I did not know, and what might have lain ahead."

Lucy scribbled this final bit of information down and thanked Nick. She had all the information she needed from him. She checked the time and saw that there was still plenty of it left before supper, and Tina and Ashley would be tied up at least until then. So she decided to seek out her second interview candidate.

For her second interview, she had no particular ghost in mind. She figured she'd start making her way downstairs and see who she might run in to.

On the third floor, she came across the Fat Friar, merrily singing as he floated down the hall.

"Excuse me, Mr. Friar?" Lucy called out, unsure how to address the Hufflepuff house ghost.

He paused and turned around. "And what can I do for you Miss…?"

"Weasley," Lucy replied. "I wondered if I could talk to you about your life?"

"Well of course!" the Friar exclaimed. "I'm always happy to share my story with any Hogwarts student that cares to ask. What do you want to know?"

"Well, for starters, when were you born?" Lucy asked, enjoying the Friar's mood much more than she had Nick's.

"I was born in the year 987," he replied. "Hogwarts was only in its infancy at the time, and when I finally got to attend, it was like a dream come true. My family were quite poor, but Professor Hufflepuff was kind and paid for all my supplies with school funds."

"Professor Hufflepuff?" Lucy gaped. "You were taught by Helga Hufflepuff herself?"

"I was," the Friar nodded. "And it was by the grace of God that she chose to look after me like she did."

"And after school?" Lucy asked.

"Well I had to show my gratitude for all that God had done for me," the Friar insisted. "If it hadn't been for Him, I'd have probably starved to death like so many of the other children from my village. So I joined the Church."

"And that's how you got the name Friar?" Lucy guessed.

"Indeed," the Friar nodded. "Though at the time, I was Friar Tom. The other bit came later."

"How?" Lucy asked, when he didn't immediately volunteer the information.

The Friar – Friar Tom – hesitated. "I committed a grave sin," he said sadly. "I grew much too comfortable with my life. I became gluttonous."

"Gluttonous?" Lucy asked, unfamiliar with the word.

"In short, I began to eat more food than my body required. I enjoyed it so much, it was difficult to stop."

"But what's wrong with eating?" Lucy frowned. She ate food all the time, and if it was good food, she'd keep eating it after she'd had her fill."

"It was selfish," the Friar informed her. "I was eating food when I didn't need it, and others were starving all around the world. It was shameful behavior."

Lucy didn't want to get into a moral debate with the Friar, so she just scribbled down the information and let him continue his story.

"I tried to make it up. The Lord had seen fit to bestow upon me the gift of magic, and I knew He intended me to use it for good. As healing magic was my specialty, I made that my focus. I healed all sorts of maladies and injuries, things no doctor could cure. I never tried to hide my magic from anyone. I never saw magic as a sin. I saw it as a blessing."

"I suppose things didn't end well?" Lucy guessed.

"No," the Friar shook his head. "The other churchmen grew suspicious of me. Magic had always been considered an evil thing, and they couldn't get past their preconceived notions. No matter how many times I tried to convince them it was a blessing, they always saw my power as a curse. I was thirty two years old when they executed me for Satanism."

"Why did you stay behind as a ghost?" Lucy wondered. If the Friar had been a religious man, wouldn't he have believed in heaven?

"I knew I didn't deserve it," the Friar said sadly. "To go on, I mean. Heaven was waiting for me, but I hadn't earned my place. I'd let my Father down. I'd caved to the earthly temptations of food and drink, failed in my holy mission to heal the world's sick, and flaunted my gifts in the faces of my fellow churchmen, instead of guarding them as the secret they should have been."

"So you felt guilty?" Lucy asked, mentally matching the Friar's story to the causes of ghost formation they'd learned in class.

"Of course I felt guilty," the Friar said. "I couldn't go on when I'd been such a failure at life. So I remained behind, in the hopes that I might be able to atone for my sins."

Lucy scribbled this down and thanked the Friar for his time. She'd got some really good material, and looked forward to collating it all into her assignment.

Since it was now past the beginning of supper, Lucy headed down the remaining stairs to the Great Hall and met up with Tina and Ashley.

"How did it go?" Tina wondered, trying to peek at Lucy's notes.

"Good," Lucy replied, stuffing them into her bag where her friends couldn't read them and steal her interviews. "I'm not letting you use my interview material for your own assignments though. You can interview your own ghosts."

"Actually, we were thinking…" Ashley said. "What if each of us interviewed one ghost, and then we just pooled the information together? It would save so much time."

Lucy shook her head. "Not a chance," she declared. "I've already got two of mine, and I'm not letting either of you steal my third interview from me."

LlLlLlLlLlL

The next day, as soon as classes were over, Lucy went looking for a third candidate for her defence assignment. Now that she had Nick and the Friar, she thought it might be fun to get a third of the Hogwarts house ghosts. So she wandered around the Ravenclaw side of the seventh floor until she ran into the Grey Lady.

"Hello? Miss Grey Lady?"

The ghost stopped and turned to regard Lucy suspiciously. "What do you want?" she demanded.

"Just to ask you some questions about your life," Lucy replied.

"I don't talk about my life," the Grey Lady said, turning and drifting away.

"Wait!" Lucy chased after her. "Can I just ask you a few things? You don't have to answer the questions you don't like."

The Grey Lady crossed her arms, but stayed put.

"When were you born?" she asked.

"The year was 983," the Ravenclaw ghost replied.

"And what was it like, your childhood?" Lucy prodded.

"Normal," the Grey Lady responded, "or as normal as it could be for a witch at that time. I didn't want to practice magic. I wanted to be like the others and have a regular life. But my mother insisted I learn to brew potions and cast spells."

"You attended Hogwarts?" Lucy asked.

The Grey Lady nodded. "I did," she confirmed.

"What about after Hogwarts?" Lucy asked.

The Grey Lady clammed up. "There was no after Hogwarts," she declared. "By that time, I was dead."

"Why?" Lucy asked, curiously.

"I think that's enough," the Grey Lady declared, turning around and drifting through a wall through which Lucy couldn't follow her. Lucy didn't even have a chance to call out to her to stop.

"Well that was a bust," Lucy muttered to herself.

She still needed a proper interview. She'd tried the Grey Lady, but that had been a failure. So Lucy decided to seek out the Bloody Baron.

She found him lurking around in the dungeons. It was dank and musty and creepy and Lucy hoped this interview would go well.

"Excuse me, Mr. Baron?" Lucy asked tentatively.

"Get out," the baron growled at her.

Lucy's stomach flip-flopped, but she was determined to make it through this interview. The life of a newspaper reporter wasn't always roses and rainbows after all.

"Can I just ask you a few questions?" Lucy asked.

"Get it over with," the baron growled.

Lucy sucked in a breath. "When were you born?" she asked.

"November of 982," the Baron said shortly.

"Okay," Lucy nodded, scribbling it down. "And you attended Hogwarts?"

The Baron nodded. "I started when it opened," he said. "I never graduated."

"Because you died?" Lucy guessed. Behind all the blood and gore, he did look quite young.

He nodded. "Killed myself. Couldn't be without her. Then again, I may as well be without her still."

"Without who?" Lucy frowned.

"Helena," he responded. "The Grey Lady. I killed her. Hated myself for it. Killed myself to be with her for eternity. And she rejected me just the same."

"Well you had killed her," Lucy pointed out.

The Baron gave her a threatening look and she took a step back uneasily. Even though he was a ghost, she was still afraid of him.

"I had my reasons," he said. "Is that all?"

Lucy nodded. She had enough to write her assignment, and she didn't want to stay down in the dungeon any longer than necessary.

When Lucy arrived back in the common room, it was to find Tina and Ashley dreading doing the assignment.

"Can't we just copy yours?" Tina pleaded.

"No," Lucy shook her head. She'd worked hard for the information, she wasn't about to give it away. "Go on, it'll be fun. You'll get to hear some really interesting stories."

"But they're all so old," Ashley complained. "Old people are boring."

"Not the Hogwarts ghosts," Lucy shook her head.

"Where do we even start?" Tina wondered.

"Try the Fat Friar," Lucy suggested. He'd been the most enthusiastic about the whole process. "Stay away from the Grey Lady and the Bloody Baron if you can."

"Alright," Tina sighed, getting up and dragging Ashley out of her chair. "Come on, let's get this over with."


	9. May Year 1

_Year 1: Right to Write _

Chapter 9: May 2017

After the ghost interview project, school went back to the same boring, mundane assignments it had always been. The only difference was that with exams fast approaching, they not only had to study what they were learning, but they had to re-study everything they had learned all year.

"It's too much," Lucy declared one evening. "How am I supposed to have enough time to study every topic that we've covered all year in every one of our classes? How is this fair? We should only be tested on the stuff we covered this term."

Apparently, Molly overheard this, because she immediately appeared at Lucy's side.

"I can help with that," she said eagerly.

"Help with what?" Lucy frowned.

"Your studying. Or at least, your study schedule. Figuring out how to balance all your classes and cover all the topics," Molly said.

"Oh, that's alright," Lucy shrugged. She could figure it out. She didn't need her sister interfering.

"You don't know what you're saying," Molly shook her head. "You'll see. I'll make you a study schedule and you'll see."

She disappeared before Lucy could insist that she didn't want a study schedule. She would make it work her own way. She'd seen Molly's study schedules and she didn't want to have to follow such a strict regimen.

She turned back to Tina and Ashley. "Whatever," she muttered. Just because Molly made a study schedule didn't mean Lucy had to use it.

LlLlLlLlLlL

The next day, Lucy and her friends were studying in the library when Molly suddenly just claimed a seat and sat down.

"Alright, so I actually made study schedules for all three of you," she said, without any introduction. "And I've added in newspaper meetings, choir practices, and drama rehearsals," she added.

"Molly, that's really not – "

"Right, so they start today," Molly said, ignoring Lucy's protests. "Which means all three of you need to be studying transfiguration right now."

"But we're working on astronomy homework," Ashley said.

Molly shook her head. "I don't have you scheduled for astronomy until tomorrow," she said.

"But it's due tonight," Tina pointed out.

"Oh," Molly frowned, confused. "And you left it this late?"

"Well yeah," Lucy nodded. "We had other homework to do."

Molly shook her head, as if to clear it. "Okay, give me a list of your homework for the week and your timetable and I'll adjust the study schedule accordingly. In the meantime, get your astronomy homework finished."

Lucy wasn't about to give Molly anything, but Molly grabbed her timetable out of her bag, along with a sheet where Lucy kept track of her ongoing assignments and their due dates for organizational purposes.

"Perfect," Molly declared. "I'll be back shortly."

With Molly gone, Ashley made a face.

"What's her problem?" she demanded.

Lucy became immediately defensive. "She doesn't have any problem," she said. "She's just really into this stuff."

"Whatever," Ashley muttered. "I'm not following her schedule, no matter how colorful it is."

"Neither am I," Lucy assured her. "Let's just humor her."

So when Molly returned with their updates schedules, the three girls accepted them gratefully and then stuffed them into the bottom of their bags as soon as Molly was gone.

LlLlLlLlLlL

The following afternoon, the three girls were in the common room. Lucy was working on a herbology assignment, Ashley was studying for charms, and Tina was practicing her singing for the end-of-year production of _The Fountain of Fair Fortune_.

"What is this?" Molly cried upon entering the common room and finding them as such. "Tina, what do you think you're doing?"

"…practicing?" Tina replied, almost as a question.

"No, no, no," Molly shook her head. "You're supposed to be studying for potions. In fact…" she walked over to Lucy and Ashley to check what they were working on. "All three of you are supposed to be studying potions!" she cried. "Have you paid any attention to my study schedule?"

Lucy sighed and shook her head. "I'm sorry Molly, but I told you I didn't want one."

"How are you going to accomplish anything like this?" Molly demanded. "You'll learn better if you study the same things at the same time. You can work off each other, quiz each other, you know?"

Lucy shrugged. "I guess that's just not how we work," she said, sorry that Molly was upset, but not sorry she wasn't doing things exactly how Molly wanted her to.

"Well fine then," Molly said in a huff. "If you don't want my schedules, then I want them back."

"What?" Lucy frowned.

"Go on, I want them back," Molly insisted, waving her hand in front of Lucy's face.

For a moment, Lucy didn't move, but then she realized that Molly was serious and started rifling through her bag until she found the crumpled up bit of parchment.

She handed it to Molly. "There," she muttered. "Happy now?"

"I want Tina and Ashley's too," she insisted. "Go on."

Rolling her eyes, Ashley went looking through her bag while Tina shifted from one foot to the other.

"I think I threw mine away," Tina said uncomfortably.

"Seriously?" Molly cried, snatching Ashley's from her before she even extended her hand. "You know I worked had on that!"

Lucy stood up for her friend. "You did that by your own choice," she said. "You didn't not have to and we did not ask you to. You only have yourself to blame."

Molly had no response to this and instead just stalked off to her dorm.

"Well that was fun," Ashley muttered.

Lucy didn't really know how to feel about the whole thing. She was just glad it was over.

LlLlLlLlLlL

Over the next few weeks, keeping up with all the work became even more challenging. There was so much to remember, and the teachers had moved into the review unit of the courses, which meant a rapid recap of everything they'd covered since day one.

Each professor was also scheduling optional review sessions during non-classroom hours, where the students could ask questions, and where they would simulate exam-type questions for practice. In order to fit in the review sessions, Lucy even had to skip a few newspaper club meetings.

It had reached the point where nobody had any time for anything fun. Lucy was so stressed out; she was eating, sleeping, and breathing her notes, textbooks, and homework. Tina and Ashley weren't faring much better, and they had the added stress of working on the end-of-year production. At least if Lucy didn't do as thorough a job fact-checking an article, it wasn't a huge deal.

For whatever reason, James and Andrew seemed significantly less stressed out than the girls. Lucy suspected it had something to do with them not caring about their grades enough to work for them. But it was frustrating, when the boys were goofing off in the common room, and the girls were slaving away with their homework.

"Come join us," Andrew suggested one night, trying to pull Lucy away from her work.

"I can't, I have to study herbology," she shook her head.

"Forget herbology," Andrew insisted. "We're going to rate the professors on a scale from most to least attractive."

"I can't," Lucy continued to shake her head. "Fun as that sounds," she added. The truth was though, she really didn't want to rate the professors with Andrew and her cousin. They would probably be gross about the whole thing anyway.

LlLlLlLlLlL

The next day, things kicked up a notch. The professors began handing out study guides in all their classes, containing practice tests with answers, and tips on what to focus on and what not to worry about. Now Lucy had even more to read and even more work to do.

That evening, she was so worked up, that she knew she needed to take a break. Even if it was just a short one, she needed to disengage from school for a little while.

"Come on guys, let's just relax for a bit," Lucy suggested.

Tina and Ashley were reluctant at first, but they were worn out too, and eventually agreed. They went up to the dorm and grabbed Tina's _Cauldrons and Curses_ game and set it up for a game. They promised each other than they would play one game only, and then go back to their homework. Tina got out her candy stash and they passed that around too, just needing to take a nice proper break.

"Here's a random question," Lucy asked mid-way through the game as Ashley received a curse card and had to go back to the beginning of the board. "Do you guys think any of the professors are attractive?"

"Why would you even ask that?" Tina frowned. "They're our teachers. I don't want to think about that."

"I don't know," Lucy shrugged. "Andrew was talking the other day and – "

"That's actually an interesting question," Ashley said. "I mean, Professor Flitwick is obviously the most attractive."

Lucy ran through the other professors in her head and then nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you're right," she agreed.

"And I would definitely say Binns is least," Ashley added.

"You're only saying that because he's a ghost," Tina protested, getting into the game. "You're profiling."

"No," Ashley shook her head. "Even if he wasn't a ghost, I'd still think him least attractive. I mean, he was already ancient when he died, and death isn't improving things."

"Professor Brunwell's alright," Lucy said, throwing her own opinion into the mix. "I mean, when you look past the glasses."

"Ooh, someone's got a little crush?" Ashley mocked.

"Gross," Lucy cringed. "I'm sorry I brought it up."

"Derlid's got some muscles on him though," Ashley declared. "Of the male professors, I'd go for him over Brunwell."

"What about Professor Longbottom?" Tina wondered.

Ashley shrugged. "He's married," she declared. "As far as I'm concerned, he and Abbott-Longbottom can just be written off."

"Professor Abbott-Longbottom is actually really pretty though," Tina said.

"But not as pretty as Flitwick," Ashley added.

Tina agreed. "No, not as pretty."

"I think it's because she'd married," Ashley theorized. "No reason to look your best all the time when someone's already committed to you."

"Don't me mean," Lucy said. "It's not like she'd completely let herself go."

"You're the one who started this whole conversation," Ashley reminded her.

"I know," Lucy sighed. "Go on, let's just finish our game."

LlLlLlLlLlL

The days went on, and Lucy started to realize that she was more behind than she'd thought. She was only halfway through her defence notes, hadn't practiced any of her first term transfigurations, and had barely started to revise for history of magic.

She came to a haunting realization. She should have accepted Molly's study schedule. As annoying as it had been, at least it would have kept her on track. Now she had no idea how she was going to catch up. She probably never would.

One evening, she was sitting alone in the common room – Tina and Ashley had a choir/drama meeting – and Molly sat down next to her.

"How's the studying going?" she asked.

"Good," Lucy lied, "really good."

"Good," Molly said back.

Lucy studied for another minute or so and then caved.

"Alright, it's not fine," she said, the pressure of Molly sitting right next to her overwhelming her. "I'm sorry Molly, I should have listened to you, and I can't do this without a study schedule. I'm so behind, I'm never going to pass my exams now."

Molly made an '_I told you so'_ face and Lucy wished she hadn't said anything.

"Forget it," Lucy muttered, shaking her head. "I don't know why I said anything."

"Well did you want my help?" Molly asked. "Because last time I tried to help, it didn't accomplish very much."

Lucy thought about it. On the one hand, accepting Molly's help would be like admitting defeat. It would be proving that Molly had been right all along and that Lucy needed the structure that Molly had tried to give her with the study schedule. On the other hand, Lucy really did want to pass her exams.

"I guess I'm asking for help," she sighed.

"And will you take it when I give it to you?" Molly asked, still hesitant.

Lucy nodded, done with fighting. "Just help me pass my exams."

Molly immediately switched into crazy-Molly mode. She demanded to know exactly where Lucy was with her studying for each of her classes and how much she had left to cover. When Lucy showed her, Molly shook her head in disbelief, shocked that Lucy had been so slack up until now.

"Alright, where are your flashcards?" Molly demanded.

"My flashcards?" Lucy frowned. She shook her head. "No, I don't have any flashcards."

"How do you not have flashcards?" Molly cried, jumping up and disappearing up the stairs to the dormitories. She returned moments later, her arms overflowing with flashcards. She dumped them on the table in dramatic fashion. "Alright," she declared. "Forget about your notes. There's no time for that, and besides, my flashcards are probably more comprehensive anyway. Study these, day and night, from now until your exams, and you'll pass."

"You're sure?" Lucy asked skeptically.

"Absolutely," Molly nodded.

LlLlLlLlLlL

"Vermillious," Ashley read.

"Red sparks," Lucy responded.

"Used to indicate…?" Ashley prompted.

"A wizard in distress," Tina called out.

"Correct," Ashley nodded, putting down that flashcard and grabbing the next one. "Flipendo," she read.

"That's the knockback jinx," Lucy answered.

"Right again," Ashley confirmed. "Alright Tina, you read a few," she instructed.

Tina reached for a card from her pile. "Primary ingredients for herbicide potion," she read.

"Ooh, I know this!" Ashley exclaimed. "Flobberworm mucus, lionfish spines… and…"

"Horklump juice!" Lucy exclaimed.

"Correct," Tina confirmed. She took the next flashcard. "Where would you find a bezoar?"

"Ooh! Ohh! In the stomach of a goat!" Lucy cried enthusiastically.

She was really loving the whole flashcard study method. It was a lot more fun than just reading her notes over and over again, and she was actually finding that she remembered more than she gave herself credit for. Ever since Molly had lent her the flashcards, Lucy had felt much more confident about her upcoming exams.

"Okay Lucy, you go next," Tina instructed. Lucy nodded. They were alternating who was reading the flashcards, so that all three of them would have the chance to answer, and they were also alternating topics, so that they didn't focus for too long on any particular subject at the expense of the rest.

"Okay, here we go," Lucy said, grabbing the next card in her stack of history of magic flashcards. "The year of the soap blizzard," she read.

"1378," Tina responded.

"That's right," Lucy nodded, switching the card out for another. "And the year of the gargoyle strike?"

"1911," Ashley answered.

Lucy nodded again. "Alright Ashley, you go again, but not defence again."

Ashley had been reading the defence flashcards for the past three rounds, and charms was falling by the wayside.

"Alright, fine," Ashley agreed. "Um… oh this is an easy one. Lumos."

"Wand-lighting," Lucy replied, bored.

"See? This is why I keep going for defence," Ashley insisted.

"So find a difficult one," Lucy challenged her.

Ashley rifled through the charms flashcards. "Okay umm… here's a good one. What's the wand motion for the hardening spell?"

"Oh wait, I know this!" Tina exclaimed. "It's… it's… it's this one!" She made a movement with her arm, as if to cast the spell.

Ashley laughed. "This is going to be a written exam," she said. "You'll have to explain it in writing!"

The girls struggled to describe the particulars of the arm movement, but eventually satisfied Ashley.

"What was written on the back?" Lucy asked, wondering how Molly had phrased it.

Ashley turned the flashcard around to reveal a sketch of the direction of the spell with arrows.

"Well you didn't say that sketches were allowed!" Tina cried, turning a little red. "I could have explained it much better in a sketch!"

"I said in writing, I never said it had to be words," Ashley defended.

The girls went on for a while longer that night before they crashed. The next day, they continued with the flashcards until they'd gone through them all. Then they shuffled them, changed who was reading which subjects, and started again.

By the end of the month, even with the exams looming right in front of them, Lucy wasn't worried anymore. She had the flashcards down, and if nothing else, she trusted Molly's flashcards to be thorough. She was ready. She knew what to expect and she wasn't afraid.

_Bring on the exams!_ Lucy thought to herself.


	10. June Year 1

_Year 1: Right to Write_

Chapter 10: June 2017 

As Lucy predicted, her exams sailed by smoothly. With Molly's help, there had been no need to panic. Lucy reluctantly thanked Molly when she returned the flashcards, and admitted that she couldn't have done it without the assistance.

With exams over, the end of term loomed over the students brightly and hopefully. In not too long, school would be over and done with for two whole months. Lucy was excited.

But before the end of term, there was one very important thing that had to happen; the end of year play that Ashley and Tina were both participating in. There was also the final Quidditch game of the year – Gryffindor vs. Slytherin – but Lucy was less excited about that. It wasn't like any first years were playing in it, after all.

That week in their newspaper club meeting, Kate was assigning the articles for their final edition before the summer. It was very exciting. There would be an article about the big Quidditch game, the annual survey of the graduating class, focusing on where they were headed after Hogwarts, and of course an interview with Headmaster Slinkhard, detailing his plans for the upcoming school year.

"Hang on a second," Lucy spoke up when Kate finished handing out the assignments. "You didn't assign anyone to cover the end of year production."

"What production?" Allison asked, seeming confused.

"_The Fountain of Fair Fortune_," Lucy replied. "The drama production?"

She looked around the room, hoping for confirmation that others knew about this, but everyone stared at her blankly.

"Seriously?" she asked. "Nobody knows what I'm talking about?"

"It's not a very popular show," Kate said finally. "Nobody really goes to it, so we've never bothered to cover it. Nobody wants to read about a show they didn't even want to attend."

"But that's not fair!" Lucy insisted. "What about all the work the drama club put into it? And what about the choir? They're a part of it too!"

Kate shrugged. "The assignments are already set," she declared. "I don't have anyone to spare for this."

"I'll do it," Lucy declared boldly.

Kate hesitated. "We don't have the space in the paper," she protested. "And you're not a writer yet. You're just a fact-checker."

"Let me write the article," Lucy insisted. "If it's decent, you run it. If not, then I guess it was good practice for me."

"Fine," Kate agreed. "Write the article. But I don't want this to take time away from your helping Morgan with the article on the graduating class."

"Of course not," Lucy assured her. "I'll have time for both. And then once I've written it, you'll see that it's worth including."

LlLlLlLlLlL

"I can't believe she's letting you write an article!" Tina exclaimed when Lucy told her friends the news. "That's so exciting!"

"Well it's not a real article yet," Lucy reminded her. "It only gets published if it's good."

"Well then obviously you'll just have to write a good article," Ashley declared confidently.

Lucy shook her head. "I don't just decide to write a good article," Lucy said. "I write it and then we find out if I'm any good."

"You're a great writer," Tina encouraged. "And besides, the play is amazing, so you'll have great content as well."

LlLlLlLlLlL

The day of the play arrived, and Lucy, Tina, and Ashley were three huge bundles of nerves. Lucy was frantically preparing herself for her first real newspaper article ever. Tina was practicing her part for the singing, and Ashley was trying to make a mental list of her various costume changes, and figure out how much time she was going to have for each, as she was going to be playing multiple extras.

Though the show wasn't until the afternoon, Tina and Ashley had to join the rest of their club members immediately after breakfast to make all the final preparations. Left alone, Lucy took to wandering around the school, trying to remind herself of all the important tips she'd picked up about article writing over the course of the year.

Who? What? When? Where? How? Why?

These were the essential questions that Lucy would have to answer in her article. Without being overtly obvious about it. The who shouldn't be too difficult – the play was being put on by the drama club in collaboration with the choir, and also the art club, who'd helped with the painting for the sets and sewing for costumes and such. The playbill would have everyone's names in it, and if she was in doubt later on, Lucy could always ask Tina or Ashley for someone's name.

The what wouldn't be complicated either. The play was a rendition of _The Fountain of Fair Fortune_. That was pretty straightforward.

The when and the where wouldn't be complicated either. It was the how and the why that Lucy was nervous about. Not to mention, her article would require a critique of the play as well – an opinion section. While generally opinion articles weren't written by actual club members, but rather taken from submissions from other students, a small section detailing Lucy's take on the production would be expected in an article such as this. Lucy was especially nervous about this bit.

If the play was phenomenal, it wouldn't be a problem. She would say so, and she would explain why she thought so, and she would be done with it. But if Lucy didn't like it, she was afraid of what Tina and Ashley would say when they saw her opinion. On the one hand, she couldn't betray her craft by lying about the production being good if it wasn't. On the other hand, she couldn't betray her friends by writing a terrible critique.

Lucy just hoped the play was good.

As lunchtime approached, Lucy found herself up in her dormitory, leafing through old copies of the _Hogwarts Herald_. She was re-reading similar articles to the one she would be expected to write in the hopes that it would put her in the right mindset.

Of course, she wasn't expected to write the entire article while sitting and watching the play. But she would have to take diligent notes while watching, and she didn't want to miss writing something down that would turn out to be important and then forget, or be able to recall her exact thoughts from the time.

Lunch was a hurried affair. The drama club would be using the Great Hall to stage their production, so an announcement had gone around informing students that it would be closing right at the end of lunch and not re-opening until dinnertime. Snacks would of course be made available in the various common rooms, but it meant there would be no lingering after lunch and into the afternoon.

The production was scheduled for two o'clock in the afternoon. At one thirty, the doors to the Great Hall were opened and Lucy, along with a handful of other students, filed in to find the Great Hall vastly transformed.

The four long house tables and their benches were completely gone, as well as the professor's table up on the platform at the front of the room. Now, there was a large curtain, that seemed to be holding itself up with magic, stretched out across the room and row upon row of chairs lined up throughout the main part of the hall. It looked like they were expecting a much larger turnout than they'd received. In fact, Lucy was pretty sure the entire school could have come to watch the show, and there still would have been chairs to spare.

As Lucy took a seat towards the front, so that she'd have a decent view, she looked around the room to see who else had come. James and Andrew had of course refused, claiming that they were going to the lake to skip rocks and try and wake up the giant squid. Lucy didn't think that was a terribly good idea, but there'd been no changing their minds.

There were a smattering of professors in the seats. Professor Longbottom and Professor Abbott-Longbottom were seated together towards the middle of the room, and Professors Thicket and Flitwick were also in attendance. There were quite a few sixth and seventh years in attendance, at least in comparison to the other years. Lucy suspected this was because their friends were actually playing lead roles in the production.

Apart from that though, the room was mostly empty. Lucy felt bad, but she scribbled down a few notes about the poor attendance, and waited for the production to begin.

At the stroke of two, the candles floating above the heads of the audience dimmed to almost not burning at all, and the ones above the stage flared, lighting up the front of the room where the play would be taking place. On the far left of the room, the large curtain started moving inwards, to reveal the choir, standing in formation. Then, in complete unison, they began to sing.

_There is a garden on a hill_

_Where flows the fountain of fair fortune_

_Protected, guarded, and well hidden_

_Open on the longest day in June_

The music was haunting and beautiful. Lucy immediately began scribbling notes to herself. Then, the curtain parted in the middle, revealing the stage. It was empty, save for a large stone wall that served as the backdrop. Lucy suspected that this was the wall that surrounded the garden.

As the choir came to the end of their song, people began to fill the stage. They were dressed in all different ways. Some of the students played older people, and some younger. Some were dressed as rich folk, and some as beggars. Lucy identified Ashley as one of members of the crowd. She was dressed in rags, and clearly meant to represent a poor woman hoping for the chance to enter the garden and receive riches.

Then, three female actors came to the forefront of the stage. Behind them, Ashley and the others milled around, waiting for sunrise, when the garden would select the chosen one for the day. They began to speak.

The three witches were of course the three female leads, Asha, Altheda, and Amata. They told their stories, and as they did, a third section of the curtain opened on the far right, and their stories were acted out soundlessly one by one by other actors. Lucy thought it was very well executed, with the three separate sections of curtain at the front, and wrote so in her notes. Then the choir sang another song as the sun rose and the wall began to open.

The three main characters held hands and clasped tightly as a vine emerged from the crack in the wall and wrapped itself around Asha. Someone must be standing behind the wall, magically controlling the vine, Lucy thought, scribbling that down as well. Then, Asha was lifted into the air, followed by Altheda, who was clasping her hand, and Amata who was holding on to Altheda's other hand. As they were lifted up, just as in the story, Amata's foot got caught up in the armor of the knight who was waiting nearby, and he also was lifted into the garden. They disappeared behind the wall and the crack closed, causing those left in the crowd to become very disappointed.

The choir shifted into a new song as the crowd dispersed, their chances of being chosen gone for another year. As the stage cleared, the central curtain closed for a set change and the focus returned to the choir, where one of the seventh years stepped forward with a solo.

_Another year to pass for those_

_Outside the garden wall_

_And inside now not one but four_

_And having quite the brawl_

The central curtain reopened, to reveal a beautiful backdrop detailing sprawling hills, tall trees, and beautiful flowers. In front of it, the three witches and the muggle knight began to argue.

Just as in the story, they came to the agreement that the knight – Sir Luckless – would join the witches and aid them on their quest. As they started to walk, the backdrop magically moved with them, the landscape changing as they journeyed.

The play went on, each of the witches having their trial and passing the tests. When they came to the fountain, the large structure became the focal point of the stage area. The four characters gathered around it and came to the agreement that Sir Luckless should bathe. As he clambered in and splashed around in it, the choir started up yet another song about how the fountain had no real power, and the four characters didn't realize the true magic of the garden.

Sir Luckless then proposed to Amata, and as they kissed, Asha and Altheda looking on, happy for their friends, the curtains closed for the final time and the audience burst into a smattering of applause.

Lucy scribbled some final notes down, and then joined in. The candles that had dimmed came back to proper intensity and the curtains parted to reveal the whole cast in a line, holding hands and bowing. Ashley was there wearing her costume from the Sir Luckless flashback that had happened on the far right section of the stage when Sir Luckless had revealed his backstory during the journey through the garden. Lucy caught her eye and gave her a thumbs up in encouragement, and Ashley's smile widened at that.

LlLlLlLlLlL

After the play was over, Lucy and the rest of the audience gradually trickled out of the Great Hall, while the drama club and the choir and all the others involved stayed behind to put it right again before dinner. Since Lucy had some time before her friends would be looking for her company, she headed to the library to get her notes in order and start working on her article.

Though it had been extremely poorly attended, Lucy thought the production had been really good. The students playing Sir Luckless and Amata were very good choices, and while Altheda and Asha were a little stiffer, Altheda more so, they'd still done a good job. And the choir had sung beautifully.

It took Lucy most of the next day to put all her ideas in order and fix the article up enough that she was ready to hand it in to Kate. Just before dinner, she headed to the newspaper room, where she was unsurprised to find Kate working away at the final edition of the newspaper, which was set to be released the very next day. She set her article on Kate's desk with pride, and took a step back.

"This is it then?" Kate said, glancing from Lucy to the article and back again.

"Yes," Lucy nodded. "And it's quite good, if I do say so myself."

"I'll be the judge of that," Kate declared, taking up the article and glancing through it.

Lucy shifted uncomfortably. Was she meant to stay, or was she meant to leave? Kate hadn't said anything, so Lucy waited while the editor in chief read over her article with critical eyes. Her stomach began to twist in knots as she waited, the tension growing the longer it went on. Finally, Kate put the article down.

"You show some real promise," Kate said. "You've made some good points, and overall, it's a decent article. It's not particularly well-written, but that's a lesser issue and will just require some structural and grammatical edits.

Lucy wasn't sure how to respond to Kate's blunt critique of her article, and just continued to stand in silence as she spoke.

"Normally I would never let a first year's article appear in my newspaper," Kate went on. "You know that of course. And normally we don't cover the end of year play, because it's not popular enough and nobody wants to read about it anyway."

Lucy nodded. "It wasn't very well-attended, it's true," she agreed.

"But your article is short and to the point," Kate continued. "It won't take up too much space, especially once we take out the unnecessary middle section and shorten the rest – you use too many words to express yourself, you'll have to learn to be concise," she added when Lucy started to frown at her comments.

"But you're willing to run it?" Lucy asked, unsure if she was understanding Kate correctly.

"Why not?" Kate shrugged, strangely out-of-character and laidback. "It's my last newspaper as editor in chief. I'll be gone next year anyway. I might as well give you this shot. Merlin knows when Morgan's in charge next year she won't let anyone under third year write a thing, even when it's the end of the year and the second years are minutes away from being writers of their own."

Lucy nodded. Even Allison and Curtis had been allowed to write short pieces in the last few editions of the newspaper, as practice for being proper third year writers the following year. But as the only sixth year in the club this year, Morgan was bound to be named editor in chief for next year, and as a Ravenclaw, she was all about perfection and following the rules. Where Kate would bend the rules here and there, there was no chance of that next year with Morgan. Lucy suddenly realized how lucky she was to have had Kate as her first editor in chief, and wished she'd appreciated the Slytherin more throughout the year.

"Thank you," Lucy said gratefully.

"I'm going to heavily edit it," Kate warned her. "It'll still have your content, but it's not going to sound much like how it sounds now."

"That's alright," Lucy said. "And it'll be helpful to see what you do change and how. I'll be able to see what things I need to work on and what things I'm already doing properly."

"I'm glad to hear that that's you attitude," Kate smiled. "You know, I really do think you're going to make an excellent reporter."

"Thanks Kate," Lucy said again. "And thanks for everything you've done for me this year."

"I thought you resented me, for making you fact-check all year?" Kate reminded her.

Lucy shook her head. "I didn't understand then what you were doing. But now I do. So thanks. I'm really going to miss you next year."

"Me too," Kate replied. She picked up her quill again, and Lucy took that as her queue to leave.

LlLlLlLlLlL

The next day, the newspaper was released, and Tina and Ashley raved about Lucy's very first byline. Of course, right underneath, it read _edited by Kate Weston_, but Lucy didn't care. She was the official author.

The next day, the Hogwarts Express departed from Hogwarts for the summer, returning its students home for the summer. Though Lucy was sad to part from her friends, she was glad for the break from classes, and she looked forward to the time to rejuvenate for the coming year. She would spend the summer improving her writing skills, going over all the notes she'd received from Kate, and when she returned in September, she would be ready for a whole new year of adventures.


	11. September Year 2

_Year 2: Moving in Reverse_

Chapter 11: September 2017

"Teddy and Victoire were doing _what_?" Lucy gasped.

The Hogwarts Express had only just pulled out of the station, and already James had the hottest gossip of the new term.

"It's like I told you," James insisted. "They were snogging. Right there. In plain sight for everyone to see."

"I just can't believe this," Lucy marvelled, trying to absorb the information. "How could none of us have known?"

"Maybe they only just started seeing each other," Ashley suggested. "And they're keeping it quiet until they're sure it's going to last."

"Well if they keep fighting like they were, it won't last much longer," James said. "Victoire seemed pretty upset with Teddy about something."

"Maybe they were breaking up," Tina suggested.

Lucy shook her head. "I think they must have broken up a while ago," she said. "Think James, Teddy was miserable all summer. Every time we saw him, he was moping around."

James shrugged. "Well Victoire did spend the summer in Dublin," he pointed out. "Maybe he was moping about that."

But Lucy didn't buy that. Teddy had been much too morose. If it had just been the long-distance, it wouldn't have been any different than Victoire being at Hogwarts without him. No, they'd definitely been broken up a while. She told James so, but he wasn't so easily convinced.

"You didn't see them though," James insisted. "They were both really into each other. They kissed for a long time before Victoire pushed him away. It didn't look like they were broken up."

"Just because they still have feelings for each other doesn't mean they aren't broken up," Lucy protested. "You said Victoire pushed Teddy away? So Teddy must want her back, and he came to tell her so. And her emotions got the better of her for a minute, but then she remembered herself and told him no. That's what must have happened."

James made a face. "You don't understand anything," he declared. "You weren't there, you didn't see it."

"I think I understand a whole lot more than you do," Lucy retorted.

The two ended up having to agree to disagree. James refused to believe that Lucy could know what was going on without witnessing any of it. Lucy refused to believe that her dolt of a cousin knew anything about relationships or romance. Andrew, Ashley, and Tina wisely did not choose sides, and instead transitioned the topic of conversation away from Teddy and Victoire and towards a discussion about what kind of dessert would likely served at the welcome feast.

LlLlLlLlLlL

The first week back was hectic, but it felt good to be back in the swing of things. Being back in class took some getting used to, and Lucy found herself having to recall knowledge she'd filed neatly away over the summer holidays. But by the end of it, Lucy felt confident that she had her bearings back, and was looking forward to the first meeting of the year for the newspaper.

As soon as their final lesson was over that Friday afternoon, Lucy, Ashley, and Tina parted ways, each of the three headed to their various activities. Lucy headed for the first floor, eager to be back and excited to finally come off the sidelines. After running her first byline in the final issue of last year's paper, Lucy was sure she would get at least a few assignments of her own this year.

The first thing Lucy noticed when she arrived in the newspaper room was that Kate wasn't the one standing at the head of the room. Instead, Morgan Davies, now a seventh year from Ravenclaw, stood behind the desk that Lucy had always considered to be Kate's, a sense of authority exuding out of him. His head was raised, and it was clear he was extremely proud of his new position. Even though he was the only seventh year on the newspaper, and so really, he'd gotten the position by default. Lucy rolled her eyes.

Lucy also noticed that there were a couple of new faces in the room. There were a couple of first years, one wearing a Gryffindor tie, and the other wearing a Slytherin tie, and Eva Carpenter, one of Lucy's Ravenclaw classmates. Lucy waved at Eva and went over to join her.

"Hey Eva," Lucy said. "Are you thinking about joining the paper?"

Eva nodded. "When the clubs were all starting up last year I was still just getting used to being at Hogwarts. And by the time I wanted to join, it was well into the year and all the clubs were up and running. So now I'm taking my shot."

"That's great!" Lucy exclaimed. "Well I think you're going to like it here on the paper. I sure do."

Their conversation was cut short when Morgan cleared his throat and addressed the group.

"Welcome back from summer everyone," he declared. "For those of you who don't know me, my name is Morgan Davies, and I will be this year's editor-in-chief of the _Hogwarts Herald_. I will not go easy on you. When your work stinks, I'll tell you. Because with me in charge, every newspaper and every article that we publish will be perfect. Any questions?"

Everyone in the room glanced at each other, but nobody raised their hand.

"Excellent," Morgan declared. "Well, I've posted assignments on the board," he gestured to the newsroom bulletin board. "Newbies, come and register with me, and I'll add you to the rotation. First drafts are due by Tuesday."

And with that said, Morgan sat down at his desk, leaving the rest of the group to their own devices.

"That's it?" Eva balked. "We didn't even do introductions."

Lucy sighed. "It's too bad you didn't join last year," she said. "Kate was a great editor-in-chief. Come on, I'll introduce you around."

After Lucy had made sure that Eva had met everybody, and Lucy had made a point of introducing herself and Eva to Penny and Sean, the two first years, Lucy headed over to the bulletin board, leaving Eva to 'register' with Morgan, whatever that meant.

"Hey Lucy," Allison Clearwater came up behind Lucy, tapping her on the shoulder. "Looks like we're going to be working together!"

"What?" Lucy frowned. Allison was a third year, which meant that this year she would finally be a junior writer, writing her own pieces for the paper instead of just fact-checking. But if she and Lucy were working together… Lucy frantically turned to the bulletin board and located her name… and it was attached to both Allison and Curtis' names – both of the group's third years. "I don't understand."

"What don't you understand?" Allison frowned.

"I'm supposed to be getting my own articles," Lucy insisted. "Not fact-checking for you and Curtis! I need to talk to Morgan."

Even while Allison called after Lucy, claiming that Lucy was a second year, and second years are always fact-checkers, Lucy stormed up to Morgan's desk.

"What are you playing at, Morgan?" Lucy demanded, pointing angrily in the direction of the board. "Where's my article?"

"Your article?" Morgan frowned, looking up from his work. "Lucy, you're a second year, you don't get an article."

"But Kate gave me a byline last year. I'm an established reporter now. I should get my own article."

"Lucy, you're a second year," Morgan pointed out. "You're not a reporter, you're a senior fact-checker. Which is why you've been assigned to work with Allison and Curtis. As our two newest writers, they'll need the most experienced fact-checker editing their articles."

"But that's not fair!" Lucy cried.

"Actually, it's completely fair," Morgan said. "What wasn't fair was Kate giving you a byline when no other first year has ever gotten one."

"That can't be true," Lucy said, placing her hands on her hips.

Morgan shrugged. "Well it hasn't happened in a long time. She didn't get one as a first year, I didn't get one, nobody in this room besides you got one in fact. I'm not sidelining you. I'm putting you back in your place. A place Kate should never have pretended to elevate you out of."

Lucy huffed. Morgan wasn't being fair, but it was clear he wasn't going to change his mind. "Well, I'll show you," she declared. "Just like I showed Kate. You'll see. I'm wasted as a fact-checker. By the end of term, I'll be writing the most high profile articles. Just you wait."

LlLlLlLlLlL

"So how did it go?" Andrew asked when Lucy arrived back in the common room later that afternoon.

"It was a complete disaster," she announced, flopping down onto a couch. "I'm not getting any of my own articles to write, and I'm stuck babysitting Allison and Curtis while they try and probably fail to swim. At least last year I was fact-checking for experienced writers. Who knows what kind of crap these two will come up with?"

"Don't you think you're being a little harsh?" Andrew asked.

Lucy turned to her side so that she could see Andrew properly. "No," she declared, crossing her arms. "No, I don't."

She turned onto her back again and stared at the ceiling. "Where's James?" she wondered.

"Down at the Quidditch pitch, of course," Andrew informed her. "Practicing again."

"You didn't want to do with him?" Lucy frowned.

Andrew shrugged. "I'm not trying out," he replied. "I want to be keeper, but that's the only position that's not open this year. Maybe I'll try out next year."

"Maybe I'll try out next year too," Lucy muttered. "Join a club where they'll have to let me participate."

"What position would you try out for?" Andrew wondered.

"Chaser," Lucy replied immediately. It was something she'd actually given some thought to over the summer, but there was no point trying out as only a second year. James was in over his head. As a third year, she'd have a better chance of making the team.

"Maybe we could practice together sometime," Andrew suggested. "You know, for next year."

"Sure," Lucy agreed. "S'not like I'll be doing any reporting or anything, so I should have plenty of free time."

Before the conversation could go any further, Ashley stormed into the common room in as much of a huff as Lucy had moments ago. Hurriedly, Lucy pulled herself into a ball on one end of the couch as Ashley flung herself longways onto it in a huff.

"I hate Selena Waldner!" she cried.

"Who is Selena Waldner?" Lucy asked, exchanging a look with Andrew.

"Selena Waldner is the brainless oaf they put in charge of the drama club this year," Ashley declared.

"Okay, and why is she brainless?" Lucy asked.

"And an oaf!" Andrew reminded her. "Don't forget the oaf part."

Lucy rolled her eyes at Andrew in an amused fashion. "Yes," she agreed. "Why is she a brainless oaf?"

"Because she decided that the production this year was going to be _The Tale of the Three Brothers_," Ashley groaned, covering her face with her hand.

Lucy and Andrew exchanged a confused look.

"I'm not seeing the problem," Lucy admitted.

Pushing herself into a sitting position, Ashley glared at Lucy. "_The Tale of the Three Brothers_ has exactly one female character," she informed them. "The dead fiancée."

"Don't forget Death," Andrew threw in. "Death might be a woman. Beedle the Bard never associates Death with a particular gender."

Ashley glared daggers at Andrew. "Okay, we all know that Death is a guy," she said, as though this were obvious. "And besides, it doesn't matter, because they're obviously going to cast a guy in the role regardless of the character's 'gender neutrality' or whatever."

"Okay, so what's the problem though?" Lucy insisted, trying to steer the conversation away from dangerous waters.

"The problem is that I'll never get cast as a main character if there are no female characters to play!" Ashley cried, throwing herself back onto the couch.

"Ahh," Lucy nodded, understanding. With only one female role in the whole play, the part would surely go to an older student. Which would leave Ashley to work the curtain, or handle lighting, or some other technical part of the production, instead of acting like she wanted. "Well it's only your second year," Lucy pointed out. "There are plenty more productions to come. And the older you get, the more likely you'll be to get a lead role. And look on the bright side, this way, they won't be able to do _The Tale of the Three Brothers_ when you're in your seventh year. Wouldn't this be so much worse if it was your last chance?"

Ashley paused for a moment before answering. "You're right," she decided, pulling herself together. "You're right. It's only my second year. I wasn't going to get a lead role, no matter what play they chose. And this way, I'll have put in my time as a stagehand, so that next year, they'll have to give me a real part."

"That's the spirit!" Lucy smiled. Suddenly, her situation in the newspaper club was looking a lot less bleak. Lucy had five more years after this one to write her own articles. The least she could do now was play her part as the only senior fact-checker of the group.

Tina joined them a little later, having fared much better in choir. Now that she was a second year, she no longer had to sing in the alto section as a filler and had been moved to the soprano section. The new first years would fill in the sections that were smaller. And Tina was extremely happy to be singing in her proper register. All in all, the girls agreed that Tina had won the day, and definitely chosen the best activity, at least in regard to discrimination against underclassmen.

LlLlLlLlLlL

Allison and Curtis both submitted their first articles to Morgan Tuesday morning, at which point they were handed over to Lucy for fact-checking. So Tuesday evening found Lucy sitting at her desk in the newsroom, pouring over an article about that year's new Head Girl and Boy – one of whom was ironically Lucy's cousin Victoire. Allison had written it, but it was clear she hadn't bothered to get any interviews, because there were no quotes, and quite a bit of the article wasn't completely right. With a sigh, Lucy began to write her notes in the margins, determining to do things by the book this year and give the draft back to Allison for correction instead of trying to correct it herself.

"Hey Lucy, fancy finding you here." It was Cody Mitchell, the group's official photographer. He'd just come out of the adjoining room – the developing room – and clearly hadn't expected anyone to be in the newsroom.

"Hey Cody," Lucy greeted the sixth year Ravenclaw. "How's it going?"

"Just developing some pictures for the big first edition launch on Friday," Cody informed her. "I've got some good ones of some of the teachers, for their back to school interviews. And I've got one of your cousin as well."

"Must be for this article I'm proofing," Lucy said, gesturing to her work. "It's about the new Head Girl and Boy."

"I heard they were dating," Cody commented.

"Who, Victoire and Joe?" Lucy frowned. "No that can't be right." She shook her head.

Cody shrugged. "Just what I heard," he said. "I could be wrong."

Lucy went back to her work. There was no point debating the topic when neither of them had the full information. And Allison certainly hadn't picked up on it, if it were true. So Lucy doubted it was. Either way, it didn't matter. What mattered was getting through this article tonight so that Allison would have enough time to re-draft it.

"Hey Lucy, I was wondering something," Cody said, coming closer and taking a seat at the desk just in front of Lucy, turning the chair around so that they were facing each other. "I heard you and Morgan arguing the other day, and I watched you struggle against Kate all last year."

"That's not a question," Lucy pointed out.

"It's not," Cody agreed. "I'm getting to it."

"Go on," Lucy allowed, putting down her quill.

"Well I just notice that you seem unhappy with the way things are run, with the reporters," Cody said. "You want to be a reporter, but you're trapped by your status as a second year."

Lucy nodded, to indicate that she was listening, but didn't confirm or deny Cody's statement.

"I wanted to offer you an alternative," Cody announced. "I'm in my sixth year now. Next year I'll be a seventh year, and then after that I'm gone. And I'm the only photographer the _Hogwarts Herald_ has got."

"Your question?" Lucy prompted, already guessing where this conversation was going.

"Well I guess I'm wondering if you would be interested in being my apprentice," Cody said. "Would you? Because someone's got to take the torch from me sometime, and it'd be best if it happened now, while I have enough time to train that person. And you seem unhappy in your current position, so I thought I'd see if you're interested."

A part of Lucy was interested. As the paper's photographer, Lucy would be untouchable. She could do what she wanted, wouldn't be constrained by her year. She'd have to work under Cody until he graduated, of course, but after that she'd basically be her own boss. Even the editor-in-chief would only have so much power over her.

But Lucy was a writer, a reporter. Lucy's passion was in investigating, interviewing, writing. She wasn't interested in taking pictures, and then developing them slowly in a dark room all by herself. She didn't want to spend her days brewing developing solution and walking around school with a camera in her hand all the time. She appreciated with Cody did for the team, but she didn't want to do it herself.

"I see," Cody said, seeing the answer in her eyes before she could give it. "I understand."

"Maybe you could try the photography club," Lucy suggested.

Cody nodded. "Yeah, I'll give that a try."

"I'm sorry," Lucy added, feeling genuinely bad for letting the older boy down. "But I joined the newspaper to be a reporter. I want bylines, not photo credit.

"I understand," Cody assured her, standing up and heading for the door. "Just figured it was worth a shot."

Lucy went back to her editing with renewed enthusiasm. This was the path that she'd chosen, and she was on it for a reason. She would do her part, fulfill her role as a senior fact-checker, and by next year, she'd be doing what Allison and Curtis were doing – writing their own articles. Only she'd write them much better than this.


	12. October Year 2

_Year 2: Moving in Reverse_

Chapter 12: October 2017

As usual, the first few weeks back at school were rather hectic, but by the time October had arrived, Lucy and her friends were starting to settle in to being back at Hogwarts. It was kind of nice, being second years, because now they weren't the youngest students in the school anymore. Occasionally, Lucy would come across a first year that was lost somewhere in the castle, and she would help by giving directions to wherever they were trying to go.

As for the _Hogwarts Herald_, though Lucy was still bitter that she was still fact-checking, she was doing it without complaint. Next year when Jasper or Cindy took charge, Lucy didn't want them to remember her as being difficult. She just had to bide her time until her chance to shine presented itself.

Classes were also going well. Though their second year work was harder than last year's had been, it was also nice to be able to go beyond the basics. All in all, Lucy was content.

"Who wants to come watch my quidditch practice?" James inquired one afternoon.

Lucy and all her friends had just arrived back in the common room after a day of classes and had planned on getting started on their most recent transfiguration assignment.

"Not me," Andrew shook his head. "I'm way behind and Professor Tonks isn't going to be happy if I turn my homework in late again."

"And I never finished my charms assignment last night, so I've got to get that done at some point," Ashley spoke up. "So I'm out."

James turned to Lucy and Tina, and even as Lucy started to shake her head to say that no, she'd rather get her work done than sit out in the cold and watch her cousin's quidditch practice, Tina answered for her.

"Lucy and I'll come," Tina said enthusiastically.

"We will?" Lucy frowned.

But before Tina had a chance to respond, Lucy saw James' face brighten at the prospect of having friends supporting him at his practice, and Lucy waved away Tina's explanation. She'd go, not because Tina had volunteered her, but because James was family and she loved him.

Parting ways from their other two friends, the three of them headed down to the pitch.

"So, how's it been so far, being a part of the team?" Lucy asked as they walked. With everything that had happened earlier in the month with the newspaper article scare, James hadn't talked much about it.

"It's been great!" James exclaimed excitedly. "I've been learning so much. Adrian's a really good captain. At first, I wasn't sure I'd be able to fly as well as Caitlin and Sarah, but as it turns out, when you practice as much as we do, it comes pretty easily. It's not like flying class where you only fly once a week."

"You're going to crush Ravenclaw in the first match," Tina said with a ferocity that was unlike her.

"Well, I don't know about that," James shrugged. "I mean, Ravenclaw's got a rather good team too, and they didn't take any second years on their team this year. In fact, they don't have anyone on the team below fourth year."

"Year doesn't mean anything," Lucy insisted, wanting to raise James' spirits before his practice. "It's not about how long you've been flying; it's about how well you fly. There are plenty of seventh years who don't know how to handle a broom."

"But they're not on their house quidditch teams," James reminded her. "Look, it's fine. I'm just glad I'm on the team, and if I defer goals to Caitlin and Sarah more often that I otherwise might, it's only because I know they're more experienced."

"You can't play like that!" Lucy exclaimed. "You've got to be aggressive. There are only three chasers, you can't afford to hang back."

"I'm not hanging back," James insisted. "Just letting the others take charge more."

"I bet by the end of the year you'll be the best player on the team," Tina declared.

James immediately shook his head. "Don't say that," he said. "Adrian and Caitlin have been on the team three years already, which would make this their fourth. _And_ they're in their seventh year."

"But _they_ didn't make the team in their second year," Tina pointed out.

"That is true," James mused.

They'd reached the pitch now and had to part ways, James heading to the changing rooms to get ready, Tina and Lucy heading to the stands to pick a good spot to watch from.

"What was that all about?" Lucy demanded.

"All what?" Tina frowned.

"You know," Lucy said. "Telling James he was better than all the others."

"Well you were doing it too," Tina defended herself.

"I was trying to encourage him, not give him a fat head," Lucy clarified. Lucy had known James a long time, and he sometimes had a habit of letting his head get too big for his neck.

"Whatever," Tina muttered, turning away from Lucy. Lucy noticed her face go a little red at this and Lucy pondered on it.

She knew that Tina had had a bit of a crush on her cousin the previous year, but she'd thought that had gone away. She'd assumed it had to do with the fame surrounding him, not to mention the fact that for an eleven-year-old kid, James had already been rather attractive for his age. Certainly more so than Albus, who Uncle Harry joked sometimes seemed scrawnier than he'd been at his age.

But as Lucy thought about it, she wondered if Tina's feelings hadn't gone away. There were times when James was around that Tina was a little more frazzled than usual, times when her words came out wrong or she got significantly clumsier than usual. It hadn't gone unnoticed how Tina had jumped at the opportunity to come watch this practice either.

Lucy considered mentioning something, but then decided against it. If Tina had a crush on James, it was Tina's business. If Lucy had a crush on someone – not that she did – she wouldn't want her friends making her uncomfortable asking her about it all the time.

The quidditch practice ran long, and by the end of it, Lucy's stomach was rumbling.

"That was a great practice," Tina said when they met up again outside the changing rooms. "Really something."

"Thanks," James said. "Is it something you think you'd ever be interested in trying out?"

"Me?" Tina practically squealed. "Play quidditch? Oh no, I much prefer to stay on the sidelines."

"What about you Luce?" James wondered as the three of them made their way back up to the castle.

"Maybe," Lucy nodded her head. She imagined herself on a broom on the pitch, bludgers streaking past and the quaffle being tossed around, and she found that she liked the picture. "Yeah actually. Maybe I would."

"But what about the _Hogwarts Herald_?" Tina asked, surprised at Lucy's response.

Lucy shrugged. "I can do both," she said. "I just probably couldn't be a sports reporter. I could still do other sorts of articles."

"What position would you play?" James asked, ignoring the newspaper debate and instead focusing on this newfound interest of Lucy's.

Lucy considered. She wasn't strong, so beating was out. She wasn't too interested in seeking, and she definitely didn't like the idea of sitting around guarding the goalposts while everyone else got to play the game.

"Not to copy you, but I think I'd play chaser," Lucy declared.

"Chaser? But – " Tina frowned, but James either didn't hear or didn't care that she was talking.

"That's excellent!" he exclaimed. "We should book the pitch sometime and you can start getting in some practice. I know Andrew wants to be keeper one day. The two of us could play one on one with him guarding the goals."

"Yeah, maybe," Lucy agreed. Though she wasn't quite as enthusiastic as her cousin, the idea did appeal to her. If nothing else, it would be nice to get some exercise every now and then.

"I'm going to go and see if Madame Volant is still in her office," James declared then, splitting off from the group. "If we're going to book any pitch time before the end of the term, we should do it now."

"It's only October," Lucy pointed out. At the very least, James had time to eat dinner before consulting the pitch schedule.

"Exactly," James nodded. "I'm already behind."

Rolling her eyes, Lucy let James run off, continuing with Tina towards the Great Hall.

"What was that all about?" Tina demanded.

"What?" Lucy frowned.

Tina moved in front of Lucy, cutting her off and crossing her arms across her chest. "All that stuff about wanting to play quidditch. You've never mentioned that to me or Ashley."

Lucy shrugged. "I didn't know I was interested until now," she admitted. She'd enjoyed flying classes last year, of course. But she'd never seriously considered playing quidditch until James had asked her. "Why are you so upset about it?"

"I'm not," Tina said in a defensive tone. "It's great that you want to play quidditch. It just would have been nice to have had a heads up."

"Alright," Lucy said slowly, as she tried to understand what had gotten Tina so worked up. "Can we go to dinner now?"

Moving out of Lucy's way, Tina stalked off towards the Great Hall, leaving Lucy to tag along behind her. When they arrived, Ashley and Andrew were already seated at the Gryffindor table and Tina stormed up.

"You'll never guess what happened," she said directly to Ashley. "Lucy has suddenly decided she wants to go out for the quidditch team next year."

"Whoa!" Lucy said, putting out her hands. She hadn't even sat down yet. "Slow down. I never said that. I only said I might be interested in playing quidditch _at some point_. I never said I was ready to try out for the team."

"But that's great!" Ashley said brightly. "What position are you thinking?"

Glad that her other friends weren't reacting as irrationally as Tina, Lucy took her seat and turned to face Ashley and Andrew.

"Well I'm thinking chaser, like James," she admitted. "Not that I'm trying to copy him or anything."

"But that's perfect!" Andrew exclaimed. "You want to be a chaser and I want to be a keeper, and the two people on the Gryffindor team that are seventh years are a chaser and the keeper."

Lucy shook her head in amusement.

"You realize it's vey unlikely that a couple of third years end up as their immediate replacements?" she asked. "It's more likely we'd make the team as upperclassmen. James making the team in second year is a bit of a fluke."

"Hey, you never know unless you try," Andrew pointed out. "James and I were thinking about booking some pitch time so that I could get in some practice for next years' tryouts. Maybe you could join us?"

Lucy nodded. "I think James is trying to book some pitch time now," she informed him. "He ran off to see if he could catch Madame Volant in her office."

Andrew glanced up at the staff table.

"Well she's not at dinner yet, so good chance he did catch her," he said.

"And what are Ashley and I supposed to do while you three are off practicing?" Tina demanded then.

Lucy frowned again, puzzled by her friends' attitude. "I don't know," she said. "Whatever you want."

"We could always watch," Ashley said excitedly. "It'd be a lot more fun to watch you three than to watch James and a bunch of older students practicing."

"So, I'm just supposed to sit on the sidelines forever?" Tina demanded.

"You're welcome to join us," Lucy offered.

Tina scoffed. "I already said I'm not interested in playing quidditch."

"Okay," Lucy said, feeling lost. "Then what do you want?"

"I don't know," Tina exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. "I don't know, okay?"

Before Lucy or anyone could respond, she'd gotten up from the bench and had grabbed a single roll from the table.

"I'm sorry, I just need some time to think," Tina declared, stepping back. "I'll find you guys later."

As Tina retreated, Lucy watched in complete and utter confusion. What was Tina so upset about?

"Am I the only one who thought that was strange?" Andrew wondered. "I mean, she's always kind of strange, but that was – "

"Shut up Andrew," Ashley threw at him. "Obviously something's wrong."

"I just wish I knew what it was," Lucy sighed.

LlLlLlLlLlL

James managed to book some pitch time for himself, Andrew, and Lucy for the following weekend. After her meltdown, Tina had returned to normal for the most part, though quidditch had become a bit of a sore topic with her. Lucy avoided bringing it up if she could for fear that another meltdown might occur.

The day they had the pitch booked, Lucy parted ways with Ashley and Tina after their final class and headed down to the pitch as quickly as possible. They only had it for an hour before the Hufflepuff team had it booked for one of their weekly practices.

They got themselves ready and took off into the air. As she lifted off the ground, Lucy found herself smiling. She'd forgotten how nice it felt to fly and have the wind streaking past her face. Though it was autumn now and getting colder, she didn't feel it as much when she flew and had quickly warmed herself up from the chill she'd gotten in walking down from the castle.

They decided not to play with any bludgers for the time being. For one thing, none of them was practicing beating, and for another thing, they had no interest in wasting time trying to wrangle them back into the box at the end of their practice.

They borrowed an old quaffle from the storage shed and Andrew took it, playing referee for the time being.

"Alright," he declared, looking sternly from Lucy to James and back. "Now we're playing half-pitch rules since I can't guard two sets of goalposts at once. If you manage to intercept the quaffle, you'll need to make your way over the half-pitch markers and then turn around and come back. How high do you want to play until?"

"If a goal is ten points… fifty?" Lucy asked.

"Let's just play until our time is up," James insisted. "If we're tied and the end is nearing, we go into sudden death with Andrew."

"Deal," Lucy agreed with a grin.

She and James squared off and Andrew tossed the quaffle into the air.

Lucy went for it, but James got there too quickly. As he barreled towards the goalposts, even ahead of Andrew, who was trying to get back to his post as quickly as he could. Pushing her broom into motion, Lucy chased after James, knocking the end of his broom with her own and causing him to veer off path and drop the quaffle. Diving, she grabbed it and swung around to start her own attempt at a goal.

By the time she'd returned to half-pitch, James had recovered and was waiting for her. Feigning left, Lucy flew right, but James anticipated the fake out and blocked her. She managed to maintain her hold on the quaffle though and backed away.

Not interested in waiting for Lucy to make her move, James shot right at her. Without even thinking, Lucy ducked out of the way, grabbing onto her broom and dropping the quaffle in surprise. Regretfully, she watched James scoop it up and return to half-pitch.

They played like this for a while more until finally James managed to score the first goal. Now that her cousin was in the lead, Lucy became even more fierce and managed a goal of her own. She made another attempt, but Andrew blocked it, knocking it right towards James, who took the opportunity to circle around and make a shot of his own which succeeded.

Back and forth the score went, while Andrew just tried to keep up with all the shots being thrown at him. By the time the Hufflepuff team captain yelled out that they needed to get off the pitch, James was two goals ahead, putting him at six goals and she at four.

"That was a good game," Lucy said as the three of them landed. "We should do it again sometime."

"I have the pitch book again in two weeks," James informed her.

"Perfect," she smiled. "And hey, maybe I will try out next year. I may not make the team, but what's the harm in doing a tryout?"

"That's the spirit!" Andrew exclaimed. "And after practicing against an actual member of the team, you'll have a better chance than many at that spot."

"I guess so," Lucy said.

She knew she probably wouldn't make the team as a third year, but it wasn't an issue she needed to get into at that moment.

As they headed back up to the castle, seven figures dressed in yellow taking over the pitch in their absence, Lucy felt her muscles sore but in a good way, happy to have been used and also a little achy from the disuse. Lucy decided that even if she never made the team, she wanted to continue to play small games with her friends so that she could exert some energy and keep herself in shape.

This had been a good idea, and Lucy looked forward to doing it again, many times.


	13. November Year 2

_Year 2: Moving in Reverse_

Chapter 13: November 2017

Whatever had been going on with Tina, Lucy never figured out. After a few days, her friend was back to her normal sweet, cheery, shy self. Lucy and Andrew continued to hold mini practice sessions with James, though these sessions became less and less as the Gryffindor/Ravenclaw match approached. Unsurprisingly, Gryffindor won. With Ravenclaw a team member short and having to replace her at the last minute, it wasn't a shocking victory, but Gryffindor still celebrated boisterously.

In the meantime, Lucy had recently found herself inundated in work for the _Hogwarts Herald_. After the article had been published in the _Daily Prophet_ the previous month about suspicious activity around Voldemort's tomb, many students had been submitting opinion pieces on the subject. The _Hogwarts Herald _didn't usually receive so many op-ed submissions, and as such nobody was technically assigned the task of going through them and selecting those to be published. Normally they just published whatever they received, but now they simply had too many to fit in the limited pages they were allotted for their newspaper.

"Lucy," the editor-in-chief of the _Herald_ barked one afternoon as yet another team meeting came to a close.

Lucy had been on her way to catch up with Allison to discuss an article of hers she'd recently worked on that had some invalid information in it, but she stopped and turned around, heading back into the newsroom and up to Morgan's desk at the front.

"What's up?" Lucy asked, a little annoyed. She and Allison had limited time on the article and if Allison was going to have to re-write parts, she needed to talk to her immediately.

"I have a project for you," Morgan declared. "You're always talking about wanting to do more around here, right?"

Lucy's heart leapt. Was this her chance? Was this the moment Morgan would give her the opportunity for a byline?

"Sure," Lucy agreed, nodding her head enthusiastically. "If there are any projects you need me to cover, I'd be more than happy to."

Maybe it would be the post-quidditch match article where the captains of the winning and losing teams were interviewed about the outcome. Maybe it would be an article about the recent outbreak of spattergroit in Ravenclaw house. Perhaps it would be a piece about the recent explosion in a sixth-year potions class that had caused Professor Abbott-Longbottom to relocate lessons to the after-hours potions lab for a week.

"Here," Morgan said, shoving a large stack of articles into Lucy's hands. "These are editorial submissions I've received over the past few weeks. I wasn't going to run them, but Professor Thicket said that we have to."

Professor Thicket was technically the professor in charge of the _Hogwarts Herald_, but his role was usually purely symbolic. Every group or club at Hogwarts needed a teacher designated supervisor. But Professor Thicket rarely got involved in newspaper club matters.

"What do you want me to do?" Lucy frowned, less than enthusiastic at this non-reporter job.

"I want you to read them and choose the ones that are the most well-written for publication. Preferably, if you could select a few articles with varying points of view, so that we can't be accused of bias," Morgan said.

"Isn't that _your_ job?" Lucy frowned. Morgan was editor-in-chief after all. Technically it was her job to make final decisions on what to include and when.

"I have much more important things to do than to read through a pile of editorials written by a bunch of talentless would-be writers," Morgan declared.

Lucy thought that was rather unfair. Surely not every editorial in the pile would be garbage. But she also understood that this was not a promotion in any way. Lucy was having work dumped on her that nobody else wanted to do. Still, if she did it, maybe she could convince Morgan to give her a byline or two in the second term as thanks.

"Alright," Lucy sighed, shoving the editorials into her bag.

"Have them to me by the end of the week," Morgan added. "I want to include at least two with opposing views in next week's paper."

It seemed that Allison's article would have to wait because Lucy had a lot of reading ahead of her. When she arrived back in the common room and produced the editorials, her friends were all surprised by the amount of work that lay ahead of her.

"Is it really worth it?" Ashley asked skeptically. "Couldn't you just say no?"

"If I say no, Morgan will never take me seriously," Lucy explained. She had to prove that she was willing to do whatever it took.

"But this is going to take you forever to read through," Tina pointed out.

Lucy shrugged. She would do it, regardless of how long it took.

She grabbed the first editorial off the stack and began to read it. Before she even reached the second paragraph though, she tossed it to the side. The spelling and grammar in it were so bad, it made her brain hurt just trying to make sense of it. She understood the underlying point, but the quality of this editorial was not sufficient to get into her newspaper.

"This might be easier than I thought," Lucy said, moving on to the second piece. "I might not even have to read through them all."

LlLlLlLlLlL

The next day, the second years were all treated to a surprise when they walked into the defence against the dark arts classroom. After two weeks of focusing on the full-body bind curse, the mats that had been spread across the room were now gone, indicating that they would be starting a new spell today.

Professor Derlid wasn't in the habit of sharing his syllabus at the beginning of the year like the other professors, so his students never knew what they might be learning next. He said it was good practice in facing the unknown.

"Good afternoon class," Professor Derlid greeted them all as he emerged from his office at the beginning of the lesson. "As I'm sure you've all noticed, we will be moving on to a new topic today. Now that the majority of you have mastered the full-body bind – and I expect those of you who haven't to continue practicing until you have – we will be moving on to another very valuable duelling spell.

"I bet it's stunning," one of Lucy's classmates whispered.

"It's not going to be stunning," another whispered back. "He'd have left the mats out for that. Besides, stunning is way too advanced for us."

"I bet it's the shield charm," a third whispered.

Ignoring the whispers, Professor Derlid continued. "Now the spell we're going to be learning today is one that I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with. It's a simple spell that has been used in extraordinary circumstances. For a long time, it was overlooked by most in favor of more high-profile duelling spells, like the stunning spell for example. However, I think you'll all agree when I say that this spell is highly useful and can be life-saving in the right circumstances."

It was quite the introduction, and Lucy and the rest of her classmates were on the tips of their toes as they eagerly awaited the big reveal.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Professor Derlid announced, pausing for dramatic effect. "The disarming charm."

The room immediately broke out into excited chatter as everyone voiced their opinions. The disarming charm had been made famous twenty years ago when Lucy's Uncle Harry had used it to defeat the greatest dark wizard that Britain had ever seen. Lucy immediately looked around for her cousin James, to see what his reaction was.

Many other students were looking to James too. Seeing as his father was the one who'd made this spell his personal signature, it was as though everyone expected this to become James' signature spell as well. As for James, his eyes were alight with the possibilities and his face looked eager to get started.

Professor Derlid quickly demonstrated the spell, with the help of one of their Ravenclaw classmates as a volunteer, and then explained the mechanics of the spell. With a wave of his wand, the details of the spell appeared on the rolling chalkboard, which was currently positioned at the front of the room, and then he instructed every to pair off and start practicing.

Though Professor Derlid occasionally liked the dramatic presentation, he was a no-nonsense sort of professor and rarely spent very long boring the class with theory. Instead, he set them to work right away and corrected technique individually as he circulated throughout the classroom.

James and Andrew immediately partnered up and Tina and Ashley partnered with each other, leaving Lucy to partner with Eva Carpenter who was also the odd one out of her friends. Lucy and Eva were sort of friends. They worked on the newspaper together, which meant that they had that in common.

They squared off, all the pairs lining up in rows throughout the classroom.

"How do you want to do this?" Eva inquired.

"You can start," Lucy offered. "Then we can alternate."

Eva nodded and got into proper duelling stance. Concentrating hard, she attempted the charm, accomplishing nothing.

"Don't worry, it was only your first go at it," Lucy encouraged her partner, taking a stab at the charm herself. She also did not get any results, but Lucy wasn't surprised. For a spell powerful enough that Harry Potter had chosen to use it against Voldemort, it had to be a little difficult.

"So, what did Morgan want the other day?" Eva inquired. "When he kept you back after the meeting."

"Morgan?" Lucy frowned, caught off guard with the topic change. "Oh right. She wanted me to read through some editorials, pick the ones we're going to run."

"Really?" Eva asked. "That's awesome."

"Not really," Lucy shrugged. "It's just work she didn't want to do."

"But she trusted you with it," Eva pointed out. "That kind of makes you like, assistant editor-in-chief."

She attempted the charm again and Lucy's wand twitched weakly in her hand.

"That was good!" Lucy called out. "My wand moved a little. Anyway, I don't think she sees it like that. I think it's more like she's punishing me with grunt work."

"Either way, she's giving you power to decide what gets published," Eva said. "Think about it. If you wanted, you could write an editorial of your own and get a byline."

Lucy attempted the charm again as she shook her head. "That wouldn't be ethical," she said. "Reporters can't contribute editorials. The subjectivity of the editorial would clash with the objectivity of their articles."

"But you're not a reporter yet," Eva pointed out. "Just a fact-checker. So you don't have any objectivity to clash with yet."

Lucy considered. It would be really cool to write an editorial and get it published in the _Herald_. But Lucy wanted to be a serious reporter, and serious reporters didn't write op-eds. They wrote hard-hitting, fact-based articles.

She shook her head. "Thanks anyway," she said, attempting the charm again, and succeeding in making Eva's wand twitch. "But I think I'll just stick to the task Morgan assigned to me."

LlLlLlLlLlL

By the end of the lesson, the best Lucy had managed to accomplish was to continue to make Eva's wand twitch. Eva in turn hadn't managed to disarm Lucy, but had given her wand-arm a fair workout.

"How did you guys do?" Lucy asked her friends as they grouped together to head down to the greenhouses for herbology.

"No luck for me," Tina said half-heartedly. "Ashley's wand didn't respond once."

"I did pretty well though," Ashley said happily. "I mean, Tina's wand didn't go flying or anything, but she did lost her grip and it clattered onto the floor."

Lucy turned to look at her cousin, noticing that he'd been awfully silent.

"What about you James?" she inquired.

"I don't want to talk about it," he replied moodily.

Lucy sensed that now was a bad time, and so she backed off, making a note to revisit this later if his mood persisted.

LlLlLlLlLlL

Over the course of the rest of the week, Lucy continued to read through the large pile of editorials that Morgan had given her. Most of them were either poorly written or poorly argued, and Lucy was quickly able to toss them in the 'no' pile. When she finally came to the end of them, she had selected six that she felt were well-written enough to be included in the newspaper.

The problem was that she could only select two to run the following week. Morgan had said she wanted opposite opinions though, which made it easy for Lucy to select the first of the two articles. Though the vast majority of the editorials that had been submitted were of the opinion that the rumors surrounding Voldemort's tomb meant that someone was trying to resurrect him – an opinion Lucy absolutely did not share – only one of those articles was well-written. The challenge came in selecting the editorial with the opinion that the whole thing had been a ruse to create publicity. The few people that had written from that angle had all written very well and Lucy found it difficult to narrow it down.

On the final evening before she had to present her decision to Morgan, Lucy sought out her cousin James, eager for his opinion on the topic. She knew that he had written to his father on the subject and hoped that he might have some insight into the editorials that she didn't have.

"Not now," he muttered when she approached asking if he'd do her a favor.

"What's wrong?" Lucy asked, immediately sensing that something about her cousin was off.

"I don't want to talk about it," he muttered, echoing his statement from earlier in the week after they'd had their first lesson on the disarming charm.

Lucy sat down opposite James and fixed him with a hard look.

"James, something is clearly bothering you, and I demand that you tell me what it is," she ordered.

James looked up at Lucy with a mixture of exasperation and sadness.

"Just leave me alone," he pleaded with her.

"Does this have something to do with defence class?" Lucy inquired, taking a guess. The immediate look of failure in her cousin's eyes told her it did. "What's wrong? Have you just not succeeded with the charm yet?"

James was quiet for a moment and then he exploded. "It's just – everyone expects that I'm going to be great at this spell, because of my dad," he said. "But whenever I try to cast it, I can't even get Andrew's wand to do so much as twitch, let alone fly over to me. What if I never master it?"

Lucy shrugged. "Well then you'll master some other spell," she said. "And if you ever find yourself in a duel, you'll use the one you're good at. You're great at defence."

"But I need to be good at _this_ charm," James insisted.

"Why?" Lucy demanded. "Because Uncle Harry used it a few times? That's crap and you know it. We've already established that you aren't your father. You need to stop trying to be his double and start being your own person."

James sighed. "I know, but… it's hard when everyone's looking at me. I know they're hoping they'll see my father instead and then when they realize it's just me, it's like I'm a letdown."

"You are not a letdown," Lucy chastised James for even thinking that. "Don't ever think it. Take quidditch for example. If you'd tried out for seeker, odds are you wouldn't have made the team. But because you decided to tryout as yourself and not as your father, and you went out for chaser, you made the team and helped them to win their first match!"

"That match would have been won with or without me," James muttered. "Ravenclaw were seriously handicapped."

"You're missing the point," Lucy said. "They put you on the team for a reason. Because you are one of the best three chasers in Gryffindor house. Maybe Uncle Harry liked the disarming spell because he wasn't good at other ones."

"Dad can pull off any spell," James contradicted Lucy.

She grumbled under her breath, annoyed that James was insisting on being difficult.

"Okay well whatever the reason, he used the disarming spell more often than other spells. But that doesn't mean it's the best spell. It's just the one he chose to use. And you will find a spell that comes more naturally to you, and that will be your signature spell. Everybody is good at some things and bad at others. You just have to find the spell you're good at."

"I'm pretty good at the full-body bind," James offered.

"See?" Lucy said gratefully. "There you go. Leave the disarming spell to Uncle Harry. You don't have to be great at all the same things he was great at. You can be great at your own things.

James smiled and Lucy was relieved that she'd gotten through.

"You're right," he nodded. "Thanks Lucy. You know, you're very wise."

"I am," Lucy agreed smugly. Molly may be way more book-smart than Lucy would ever be, but Lucy was people-smart.

LlLlLlLlLlL

The following afternoon, Lucy made her way to the newspaper room with her two selections of editorials for Morgan to run in Monday's _Hogwarts Herald_.

"Lucy, good, you've made your decisions?" Morgan said when Lucy stepped into the otherwise empty room.

Lucy nodded, stepping up and handing over the two editorials she'd chosen. Morgan grabbed them and immediately began to skim them while Lucy stood there uncomfortably.

"Good choices," Morgan nodded without looking up. "You'll make a great editor-in-chief some day."

It was all Lucy could do not to fall over where she stood. Had Morgan just given Lucy a compliment? And more than that… had Morgan just implied that Lucy might be put in charge of the _Hogwarts Herald_ one day.

"I – " Lucy couldn't get out the words, because she didn't know what she wanted to say.

Morgan looked up.

"Well go on," she said pointing to the door. "I have lots of work to do."

"Right," Lucy nodded, scrambling away, not wanting to bother Morgan any longer than necessary. "Thank you!" she cried out over her shoulder.

She stepped out into the corridor and found herself unable to stop smiling. Maybe this whole editorial selection activity had been more valuable than Lucy had realized. As she began to walk towards the library to meet her friends, there was a spring in her step that hadn't been there before. Things were looking up.


	14. December Year 2

_Year 2: Moving in Reverse_

Chapter 14: December 2017

Before Lucy knew it, he was back home with Molly and her parents for the Christmas holidays. It had been a good term, and Lucy looked forward to returning in January, but for now she was eager to visit her oldest friend and neighbor, Emily Randall.

As soon as Lucy awoke on her first day of the holidays, she hurried to get dressed and ran next door to knock at the front door.

Emily's mother, Mrs. Randall, opened it and looked down at Lucy in surprise.

"Lucy!" she said. "We weren't expecting to see you over the holidays."

"My mother didn't tell you we were coming back?" Lucy frowned. Usually Audrey and Mrs. Randall discussed these sorts of things.

Mrs. Randall shook her head. "Well, we haven't spoken in a little while," she said. "You know how it is."

Lucy didn't know how is was. Mrs. Randall literally lived next door. It wouldn't have been all that difficult to mention, even in passing. But Lucy supposed adults could be strange sometimes.

"I came to see Emily," Lucy said then, trying to peer past Mrs. Randall in the hopes of seeing her friend. After growing up together, it was weird being apart for so long during the school year. Lucy and Emily had had plenty of time together over the summer, but she hadn't been in contact with her since returning to school and she missed her friend.

"Actually no," Mrs. Randall said, moving to block Lucy's view. "She's out at the moment."

Lucy frowned. "This early?" she asked. "Where is she?"

As far as Lucy knew, Emily didn't have all that many friends, and her hobbies were mainly indoor ones, especially in the wintertime.

"I can't tell you that Lucy," Mrs. Randall said, moving to close the door. "I'm sure you'll understand."

The door shut, and Lucy was left standing dumbfounded on the front porch. She most certainly didn't understand. What had Mrs. Randall been insinuating? What was going on here?

Lucy hurried back over to her own house and barged into the kitchen where her mother was just cleaning up from breakfast.

"What's wrong?" Audrey asked, immediately sensing that her daughter was upset.

"What's going on with the Randalls?" Lucy asked almost accusatorily.

Audrey frowned. "I don't know what you mean," she admitted.

"Mrs. Randall said you haven't spoken in a while," Lucy said. "Why is that?"

Putting down the sponge she was holding, Audrey wiped her hands on her apron and moved away from the sink.

"I guess we've just been busy recently," she said openly. "Whenever I see her out front, she's always in a rush, hurrying off to something or other. I imagine it's just life. We'll get a chance to catch up soon."

"She wouldn't let me in to see Emily," Lucy stated. "She said Emily was out."

"Alright," Audrey nodded, trying and failing to follow Lucy's train of thought.

"Where would Emily be this early in the morning?" Lucy cried. "Something's not right."

"I'm sure you're just overreacting," Audrey assured her. "I'm sure when Emily gets home, her mother will tell her you came to call and she'll be running over to see you."

Lucy sighed. Maybe she was overreacting. She'd been gone for so long and had been so hoping to see Emily today that she was just disappointed that Emily had other plans. But she would see her later. After all, Lucy had two whole weeks to visit with her friend.

Since she had some free time, Lucy decided to use the rest of the morning to get some of her holiday homework out of the way. There wasn't much – her professors wanted their students to enjoy the holidays as much as possible. Without any interruptions, Lucy was able to complete both her herbology and transfiguration assignments before lunch.

With one of Molly's friends in the hospital, Molly had insisted on going to visit her, so after breakfast Audrey had taken Molly on a trip to St. Mungo's while Grandmother Weasley had come over to stay with Lucy.

"Well Lucy," Grandmother Weasley said as they sat down to eat their lunch. "Tell me all about second year."

But Lucy was distracted, and school was the furthest thing from her mind.

"Where is she?" Lucy insisted, looking out the window in the direction of Emily's house. Lucy had been keeping an ear out for the sound of a car bringing her back from whatever excursion she was on, but had as of yet heard nothing. For some reason, it was really driving Lucy crazy, not knowing what was going on with her friend.

"Where is who?" Grandmother Weasley asked.

"My friend Emily," Lucy said, explaining the whole situation to her grandmother. "I just wish I knew when she'll be home."

"I'm sure it'll be soon," Grandmother Weasley said. "And if not, then don't worry because I have a fun afternoon planned if you'd be willing to put your homework on hold for a little while."

Lucy agreed, mostly because her homework wasn't proving to be engaging enough to distract her, and she hoped that Grandmother Weasley's activity would be.

"What did you have in mind?" Lucy asked.

"Well," Grandmother Weasley said with a smile. "With Christmas coming up, I really need to get started baking some Christmas cookies, and your parents really do have a lovely kitchen."

Lucy grinned. She'd always loved baking with her grandmother as a child and thought the activity would be a fun way to spend an afternoon. As they began though, Lucy still found herself glancing periodically towards Emily's house curiously and anxiously.

As they were sliding the cookies into the oven, Lucy almost dropped the baking sheet when she saw movement in one of the windows of Emily's house. It was Emily, going into her kitchen for a snack. Her friend had been home the whole time. Or else, she had gotten home without Lucy noticing, and was now ignoring the fact that Lucy was back from school.

"Careful there!" Grandmother Weasley exclaimed, helping to steady the baking sheet as she and Lucy slid it into the oven together. "Can't have our cookies falling all over the floor."

"Right," Lucy muttered; her attention now completely consumed by her neighbors.

Why had Emily not hurried over here as soon as she'd known that Lucy was back? Lucy didn't like to think like this, but she was basically Emily's only friend. Emily should be overjoyed to have her home for two weeks and dying to spend time with her. If Lucy was being honest with herself, she was feeling a little rejected.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Grandmother Weasley assured her when she voiced her thoughts. "Maybe she just wasn't up to playing today. Go over again tomorrow and everything will be like normal."

So, the next morning, Lucy awoke early again, and as soon as it was reasonable, went next door and knocked.

Mrs. Randall opened the door again, and Lucy watched as her face fell upon seeing Lucy standing there.

"Oh!" she said, as if surprised by Lucy's presence again. "Lucy, I wasn't expecting you."

"Did you tell Emily I'm back?" Lucy inquired, wondering if perhaps the problem lay with Mrs. Randall and not with Emily at all.

Mrs. Randall nodded. "She knows."

Lucy seized Mrs. Randall up for a moment, trying to figure out why the woman was insisting on being so uninviting. Ever since Lucy had known her, she'd always been welcoming and pleasant. This sudden change was jarring and perplexing.

"Can I see her?" Lucy asked. If only she could talk to Emily, everything would make sense. Emily would explain why her mother was acting so strange.

Mrs. Randall gave Lucy a hard look. "If Emily wishes to see you, she'll let you know," she said before practically slamming the door in Lucy's face.

Now, Lucy wasn't just confused, but she was angry. Where did Mrs. Randall get off, thinking that she could just prevent Lucy from seeing Emily like this? And without any sort of explanation? Lucy at least deserved to know why she was apparently no longer welcome in the Randalls' house.

So, Lucy decided that she wasn't going to take no for an answer. She was going to force Emily to talk to her by waiting outside her house until she came outside. Lucy went back home and donned all her warmest winter clothes, predicting that she'd be outside for a while, and then sat down on the edge of her property, where technically she wasn't trespassing, and waited.

It was over an hour before the front door opened again, and Mrs. Randall stepped out onto her porch.

"Lucy, go inside," she requested.

"You can't tell me what to do,'" Lucy called back, unwilling to back down. Emily would talk to her; she was determined of that.

"Emily doesn't want to see you," Mrs. Randall said. "She's not going to come outside."

"I don't believe you," Lucy returned. She and Emily were best friends. Of course Emily wanted to see her. Mrs. Randall wasn't making any sense.

"You can't keep doing this," Mrs. Randall insisted. "Just leave her alone."

Lucy didn't understand. What did Mrs. Randall think that Lucy had done? Worse still, what did Emily think she had done? Was Mrs. Randall speaking the truth? Had Lucy done something without realizing it that had offended Emily?

"I'm not leaving until Emily comes outside," Lucy insisted. "I'll stay out here every day if I have to. She can't stay cooped up in the house forever."

Mrs. Randall sighed, and realizing that she was never going to win, turned around and went back inside.

And so, Lucy continued to sit and to wait.

She didn't have to wait long. After another twenty minutes, the Randalls' front door opened again and this time Emily stepped outside, dressed in her warmest winter clothes. She walked over towards Lucy, stopping short of the Weasleys' property, and fixed her with a glare.

"What do you want?" Emily asked in an unfriendly voice.

Lucy was taken aback at the harshness of the tone. Never before had Emily spoken to her like this.

"Emily, why are you mad at me?" Lucy asked in bewilderment. She'd been away at school for months. What could she have done from so far away?

"I can't believe you even have to ask," Emily shook her head. "I just came out to tell you to go back inside and leave me alone. We're obviously not friends anymore, so stop coming over to my house and harassing my mother."

"What do you mean we're not friends anymore?" Lucy asked in distress. "What did I do?"

"It's not what you did, it's what you didn't do," Emily responded. "Look it's fine. I get it. You have all your new American friends now, and I'm not important anymore. But don't insult me by trying to be my friend now just because you're home for the holidays with no other options."

None of what Emily was saying was making sense. Of course Emily was still important to her, but what was she supposed to do about it when she was away at Hogwarts?

"Emily I seriously don't know why you're upset," Lucy said earnestly. "I thought we were good last fall when I went back to school."

"We were," Emily confirmed. "And then you ignored me all term."

"Ignored you?" Lucy frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"My letters!" Emily exploded. "I wrote to you for two months, but did you even respond to a single one of them? No! And why would you? I'm sure you had better things to do than to pen a letter to your oldest friend. But it would have been nice if you'd responded to at least one."

"Letters?" Lucy frowned in confusion. "I never got any letters."

"Right," Emily said sarcastically. "You didn't get a single one of the dozen letters I sent. They must have all gotten lost in the mail."

Upon hearing these words, it suddenly dawned on Lucy what must have happened.

"Emily, did you pass these letters through my mother like I told you to?" Lucy asked. She'd been very clear with Emily that if she'd wanted to write to her, she should give her letters to Audrey and Audrey would send them in the mail. This way, Audrey could ensure that they made their way to Hogwarts.

"No, I googled the address of your school," Emily replied. "What's the big deal? I didn't want to bother your Mum all the time."

Lucy groaned. Of course Emily was mad at her. Lucy would be too if she'd sent home a dozen letters and never received any reply. But what Emily didn't know was that Lucy wasn't actually a student at the school she claimed to attend in America, and so all the letters Emily had sent that fall had probably been thrown away across the pond.

"Emily," Lucy said, desperately hoping she would be allowed to plead her case. "You have to believe me. I really didn't get any of those letters. If I had, I absolutely would have written you back. I never meant to ignore you."

Emily looked torn between the belief that she'd been living with for months that Lucy had abandoned her, and the words being spoken to her now by her only friend.

"What if you're just saying that?" Emily demanded. "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

There was nothing Lucy could say. The truth was out of the question. The International Statute of Secrecy unfortunately didn't make exceptions for lifelong friends. She was at a loss.

"You don't, I guess," Lucy finally said. "You just have to trust me. Have I ever lied to you before?"

It was a long shot, and a part of Lucy felt badly for phrasing it that way since all she'd ever done was lie to Emily, about who she really was, what her family was, where she was going to school, and all of it. But she'd never lied about their friendship, and that was the truth.

"I guess not," Emily allowed, starting to soften.

"Believe me Emily, I value your friendship more than you realize. Why else would I be sitting out here like this in the cold?" Lucy asked.

This earned Lucy a smile and a small laugh.

"It is really cold out here," Emily agreed. "Do you want to come inside maybe? We could ask my mum to make us some hot chocolate."

Lucy grinned. "I'd love to," she said, relieved that Emily was willing to invite her inside. "But… I think your Mum is pretty mad at me."

Emily waved this concern away. "She'll understand once I explain what happened," Emily assured her. "I must have gotten part of the address wrong. Maybe you could take a look at it so that I don't mess it up again this term."

"It would really be best if you just sent your letters through my mum," Lucy said, realizing she wasn't completely out of the woods yet. If she didn't convince Emily to stop trying to send her mail herself, she would be right back in the same boat next holiday.

"What's the big deal?" Emily asked. "I know how to mail a letter."

Lucy sighed. "I know, but they have really strict policies at my school about the amount of post we get, so my mum usually sends all my letters from different family members in one bundle so that they don't get annoyed with me."

"This would be a lot less complicated if your parents would just let you get a phone," Emily muttered.

Lucy feigned a laugh. "Yeah, it sure would," she agreed. "Just promise me you'll give your letters to my Mum?"

"Fine," Emily agreed as they headed inside. "If it's that important to you, I will."

"Thank you," Lucy said, relieved to have that sorted.

Mrs. Randall was a little harder to convince than Emily, but in the end she said that as long as Emily was happy, she wouldn't interfere. She did seem a little colder towards Lucy than normal, and Lucy hoped that by the next holiday she could remedy that.

The remainder of Lucy's holiday was lots of fun. She spent lots of time over at Emily's house, and the usual family Christmas at the Burrow was great fun. By the time she was ready to return to Hogwarts, Lucy and Emily had returned to being best friends, and Lucy looked forward to the letters they would exchange throughout the coming term. It was a relief to have that misunderstanding sorted out, and Lucy hoped nothing like it happened again.


	15. January Year 2

_Year 2: Moving in Reverse_

Chapter 15: January 2018

_Dear Emily,_

_After what happened last term, I've decided to send you this letter right away so that you know that I really do value your friendship. I've been back in America for one week now and so far, term is off to a good start._

_Morgan still hasn't given any indications that I'm going to get a byline soon, but I'm convinced that she'll cave before the end of the year. After all, I'll be a junior reporter next year. _

_I've also realized that I need to be more intentional about doing physical activity when I'm home for the holidays. All those Christmas cookies and hours sitting in front of your TV haven't done me any favors. Remember how my school is of super old construction and doesn't have any elevators? Yeah, well climbing seven sets of stairs on a regular basis isn't fun when you've been stationary for two weeks. _

_My history teacher continues to teach us about American politics. I'd really hoped he'd move on to a new topic this term, but it looks like we're stuck leaning about politics for the rest of the year. Yawn._

_I look forward to your reply. Remember to send it through my Mum. The less total packages I get, the less the administration here will dislike me. It's a strange system they've got going, but it's best just to play along._

_All the best,_

_Lucy_

Once she finished writing her letter, Lucy made the trip out to the owlery to mail it home, along with a letter for her parents. Audrey would make sure to deliver it next door.

It was difficult having a muggle as a best friend. On the one hand, Lucy's understanding of muggle culture was extremely advanced, especially compared to many of her classmates who'd never interacted with a muggle in their life. Lucy felt she could probably pass muggle studies without even taking the class. On the other hand, it meant that Lucy constantly had to watch what she said and tell little while lies to keep up appearances.

There was so much more she'd wanted to say to Emily in her letter. She'd wanted to tell her about quidditch and her practices with James and Andrew. But there was no way to talk about a sport without naming it, and Emily knew well enough that Lucy didn't play any traditional sports like football.

Lucy also wished she could talk more about her classes. But it was difficult when Emily would be expecting to hear about Lucy's struggles with algebra or the creative idea, she'd had for an essay she was writing on _Romeo and Juliet_. Lucy couldn't talk about her study in defence against the dark arts of the banshee, or her attempts in transfiguration to turn a beetle into a button.

Everyone had always said that childhood friendship between witches or wizards and muggles had an expiry date. Growing up, Lucy had always been cautioned that once she started attending Hogwarts, the lies would lead to having to sever her ties with Emily. Perhaps this holiday was supposed to be the natural end to their friendship. But Lucy hadn't been ready to let go. Emily was her oldest friend, and one of her best friends as well. But the older they got, the less they would have in common and the more secrets Lucy was going to have to keep. It was just getting so complicated.

"Just forget about Emily," Ashley had counselled her when Lucy had voiced her thoughts on the subject. "It'll be hard, but it'll be for the better. Besides, you have me and Tina now."

But while Ashley and Tina were great, and two of Lucy's best friends, they also didn't know her the way Emily did. There was just something about growing up with a person that made a friendship different than meeting at school when they were eleven years old.

Meanwhile, with the shift from first term to second, the focus in Lucy's various classes was shifting as well. After spending four months studying the theory behind animate to inanimate transfiguration, they had finally started attempting some small-scale spells. While Lucy's beetle to button left something to be desired, her ladybug to marble was spot-on.

In defence against the dark arts, the empty duelling arena set-up had been ditched in favor of lining up rows of desks in the traditional classroom sense. It was clear that this was Professor Derlid's least favorite part of the subject, but there were some dark creatures that they needed to study, and so they returned temporarily to a theory-based course, starting with a study of banshees.

In almost all her classes, there had been a clear shift from first term material to second term material and the second years adjusted accordingly.

There were still a few things that hadn't changed. Lucy was still doing her work for the _Hogwarts Herald_. Their first issue since returning from the holidays had featured interviews with the teachers that had gone on holiday, asking where they had gone and what they had done, as well as interviews with both teachers and students that had stayed at the castle during the break discussing what Christmas at Hogwarts was like.

Lucy, Andrew, and James were also booking time on the quidditch pitch for themselves as often as they could. After playing in her family's annual Christmas quidditch game, Lucy had found that her taste for the game had only increased. It was one thing to practice one-on-one against James with Andrew protecting the goalposts. It was another to play with a whole team behind her, even if it hadn't been a full seven vs. seven.

One afternoon found Lucy down at the pitch ahead of the two boys, getting ready for the scheduled practice. They only had the pitch booked for an hour, and Lucy was making sure that everything was prepared so that they could start right away when Andrew and James arrived.

Before long, Andrew made his appearance, but he was alone.

"Where's James?" Lucy asked. She had the quaffle and all three brooms waiting on the ground. She was dressed in her warmest quidditch gear and was raring to go.

Andrew shook his head. "The idiot landed himself in detention again," he said.

Lucy sighed. "Not Nott again?" she lamented.

Ever since the start of the new term, Jason Nott had been out to get James even more so than before. Lucy didn't know what his issue was, James wouldn't explain it to her, but he was constantly trying to cause problems for James.

"At least Smith isn't joining him this time," Andrew said.

Lucy laughed. That James wouldn't be stuck in detention with Zacharias Smith would be like a blessing. The Hufflepuff was clingy and obsessive in the worst way.

"So, I guess we can't practice now," Lucy said disappointedly, picking up the quaffle to return to the storage shed.

"Unless you want to just practice your shots," Andrew offered. "We do still have the pitch booked, and to be honest, I could use the keeper practice. With the amount that you and James are always squaring off, I don't see much action when it's the three of us."

Lucy agreed readily, partly because she'd already been in the mood for quidditch and also because she could use some one-on-one practice with a keeper.

Leaving the third broom on the ground, Lucy and Andrew flew up into the air, the quaffle safely tucked under Lucy's arm. Andrew moved in front of the goalposts and Lucy flew a couple of circles to warm herself up before coming up in front of Andrew to take her first shot.

Lucy feigned left and aimed to the right, but Andrew realized what she was doing and saved the first shot with ease. He tossed the quaffle back and mocked, "you're going to have to do better than that, Weasley!"

Grinning, Lucy decided to pick up her game. She flew back to half-pitch and rushed Andrew, flying wildly so that he'd have no idea where she was going. When she threw the quaffle, Andrew was rushing to block the right goalpost and the quaffle sailed through the middle in a beautiful arc. Cursing, Andrew flew down to catch it before it hit the ground and tossed it back in Lucy's direction.

"That better enough for you?" Lucy called back, preparing her third shot.

The two continued for the better part of an hour until their time was up and they were forced to land and pack up. It had been a good practice. Lucy had got in some good shots, and Andrew had made some fantastic saves. It seemed the two were pretty decently matched against each other, which was good if they were going to be practicing together.

"That was a lot of fun," Andrew said as they walked back up to the castle together. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I have fun when James plays too, but it was nice just playing against you."

"I know what you mean," Lucy agreed. "Besides, with James on the quidditch team, it's always a little intimidating to play against him. Just now with the two of us, I felt a lot less pressure."

"Same," Andrew nodded. "You know, you fly really well. I mean, you always flew well, but you're flying even better now."

"Thanks," Lucy smiled. It may have been an awkward compliment, but it was a nice and welcome one all the same. "I like hanging out with you," she added.

After this, there was a very slight pause before Andrew answered.

"I like hanging out with you too," he admitted.

Lucy realized that in the year and a half that she'd been at Hogwarts, she hadn't spent all that much time just with Andrew. Andrew had always been more James' friend, the way that Tina and Ashley had been more her friends. It was only when the five of them hung out together, or more recently when Lucy joined James and Andrew practicing quidditch, that she and Andrew had hung out. But Lucy had really enjoyed her afternoon with the Gryffindor boy. They got along in an easy and relaxed way that Lucy didn't even feel with Tina and Ashley.

"If I'm being honest, I prefer hanging out with you than with your friends," Andrew confessed then. "Not that I don't like them, I think they're great. But Ashley can be a bit dramatic, and Tina is so quiet I never know what she's thinking. But talking to you is so easy."

"I understand," Lucy said, not judging Andrew for his comments about her friends. If she was being honest, she thought those things too.

Ashley always had to have something going on. If it wasn't with the drama club, it was with an assignment she had to complete, or a classmate had said or done something offensive. The entire world was Ashley's stage and she loved to play the drama queen. Lucy loved her to bits, but she could be a bit much.

And then there was Tina. She was a lovely and sweet girl, but she could be so quiet and reserved sometimes that she wouldn't even talk to Lucy and Ashley. Half the time, Lucy had no idea what was going on with her. Like back in October when she'd gotten mad at Lucy out of nowhere. Lucy still didn't know what that had been about. So much of Tina remained a mystery and Lucy was constantly on edge around her, wondering what she was thinking.

With Andrew, things were simple. There didn't have to be any drama. Talking to him was easy and Lucy didn't have to think about what she wanted to say before she said it. She found herself wishing that she spent more time with Andrew than she did.

"Do you want to study with me later?" Lucy wondered. "We could meet up in the library, away from the others."

She felt kind of strange suggesting it – like they were somehow cheating on their other friends. But also, Lucy just liked the idea of having a break from it all, and she felt that Andrew could give her that.

"I'd love to," Andrew returned. "After dinner?"

Lucy agreed, and as the two reached the castle, Lucy made her way up to the common room to find Tina and Ashley while Andrew headed in the direction of the trophy room where James was carrying out his detention to see how close he was to being finished.

When Lucy arrived in the dormitory she shared with Tina and Ashley, she immediately wished she'd stayed back downstairs with Andrew. Ashley was on another one of her rampages and Tina was sitting calmly on her bed, doing nothing to help.

"Lucy!" she cried immediately upon seeing her friend in the doorway. "You've got to help me!"

"What happened?" Lucy sighed, moving over to sit on the edge of Ashley's bed as she continued to pace around the room.

"Selena released the list of duties for all of us who didn't get parts in the play today," Ashley explained. Selena Waldner was the student in charge of the drama club and Ashley had disliked her ever since she'd chosen _The Tale of the Three Brothers_ as that year's production.

"Alright," Lucy said, already seeing where this was going. "And what did you get stuck with?"

"I'm a bloody _assistant_," Ashley wailed. "I'm in charge of getting water and snacks for the actors. I would have been okay with curtain or lights or magical effects, but how is being an _assistant_ going to give me any practical experience?"

Lucy looked to Tina to see if she had anything to contribute, but Tina just watched passively, remaining quiet.

Lucy sighed. "Well with so few acting roles, I imagine they gave away a lot of the technical jobs to the older students," she said objectively. Though she didn't love the practice, Lucy was very familiar with Hogwarts' policies of giving the first and second years the worst jobs. For example, her own personal relegation to fact-checking for the past year and a half.

"You don't understand," Ashley groaned, throwing up her hands. "If I'm an assistant this year, then everyone's going to remember me as an assistant and I'll never get a real part."

Lucy looked back at Tina, who shrugged her shoulders.

"I've been listening to this for half an hour," Tina declared.

Lucy moved over to sit next to Tina on her bed as Ashley began ignoring the both of them and just started throwing clothes and books around the room.

"So, how's choir going?" Lucy asked, figuring that it would be best to let Ashley get out all her frustration before trying to have an intelligent conversation with her.

"Oh, really good," Tina said. "We're actually going to be putting on a concert of our own this year, since _The Tale of the Three Brothers_ isn't going to have a musical component."

"That's cool," Lucy said.

"Yeah," Tina agreed. "I mean, I'm not getting any solos, but it'll be nice to have a concert where the attention's on us instead of on the drama club. Last year we were so overshadowed."

Lucy hadn't thought about it like that, but seeing things from Tina's perspective it made sense.

"I imagine the solos are going to the upperclassmen?" Lucy presumed.

Tina nodded and Lucy felt a resigned acceptance. It was the same situation for the three of them across the board. Hopefully, she could help Ashley to see that.

LlLlLlLlLlL

By the time Lucy finished her dinner, she was exhausted. It had taken quite some time to calm Ashley down, and even now she was still extremely on edge and at risk of another explosion.

It was with great anticipation that Lucy snuck away from Tina and Ashley to meet up with Andrew in the library.

"Thank Merlin," she said upon seeing him, almost immediately feeling calmer. "I've had the worst afternoon. Ashley had a huge meltdown."

"James has been difficult as well," Andrew agreed. "He won't stop ranting about Jason Nott. I'm so tired of it."

Even though it didn't change the afternoon she'd had, Lucy felt comforted knowing that Andrew was feeling the same frustration and stress as she, and that he'd been looking forward to spending time with her just like she had been with him.

"Well, what do you want to study?" Lucy asked, since that was the reason that they were in the library to begin with.

"How about herbology?" Andrew suggested.

Lucy agreed, and the two chose a pair of seats off to the side of the library where they wouldn't be bothered. It was so much easier working with Andrew than it was working with Tina or Ashley, or even alone. Andrew's presence was calming, and Lucy found herself relaxed just being around him. It was refreshing.

They stayed in the library until the call came that curfew was coming soon. Lucy hadn't intended to spend so long on her homework, but was glad for the break. As she and Andrew packed up their things and headed back to the common room, they agreed that it had been one of the most enjoyable evenings they'd spent at Hogwarts and that they should make a point to spend more time together.

Lucy looked forward to it, and was immensely glad to have found such a good friend so quickly in Andrew.


End file.
